


The Ghosts Of St Olav

by DiscoNight



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst, Bullying, Dubious Consent, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, M/M, Norwegian Politics, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Experimentation, Sexual Tension, Teacher-Student Relationship (referenced)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:45:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscoNight/pseuds/DiscoNight
Summary: *Discontinued Permanently - Please see A/N*Ghosts cling to the students of St Olav, a prestigious boarding school in Norway, like a second skin. From the naive new boy attempting to remove himself from the shame of his past, to the disillusioned Head Boy crushed under the weight of his father's expectations, to the fearless young radical, angry at the system he has found himself part of.Once their paths collide, none of them will ever be the same again.Or: The Boarding School AU, because every fandom needs one, with added angst, sex and politics. ;-)





	1. The New Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Skam fanfic readers, and Happy Constitution Day! I've been talking about writing a Boarding School AU for months now, and I've finally sat my ass down and made a start on it. This seemed like an appropriate day to post it. This is the first chapter of a planned ten - and it's bumper length! (I don't anticipate others will be this long but never say never. ;-)) 
> 
> I'm indebted to Flo and Anna for the information on Norwegian politics. Because this is me, and I'm extra, I couldn't just write a straightforward, sexy Boys In Uniform AU, I needed to contextualise this shit. So expect quite a few aspects of this to examine class issues and identity. 
> 
> One thing I would like to say before I start is that although this fic is very much Evak, with many of the tropes you'd expect from an Evak fic, the forming of their relationship isn't straight forward. If you don't want to read about them being intimate with other people, and exploring sexual identity in a world that discourages it, you may find this a tough sell. It's also vaguely Enemies to Lovers, and Even in particular may seem OOC at first (but please keep reading to find out why that is!)
> 
> Finally, for people reading The Oceans Shall Freeze; this will in no way impact that story, which remains my priority but is not a huge time commitment for me as it's co-written. I hope to to bring you at least weekly updates for both of these fics.
> 
> Any potential trigger warnings for the fic will be found in the Author's Notes at the end of the document. These will contain spoilers so only read if you feel you need to.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isak arrives at his new school, St. Olav Den Hellige.

 MRS ALVIND. “But I am half inclined to think we are all of us ghosts…it is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that exists again in us, but all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same.”

( _G_ _hosts, Henrik Ibsen. Act II_ )

 

* * *

 

**Isak**

 

The car travelled slowly through the country lanes that forked out from Lillehammer, brown veins against a dull skin of withered November trees. The roads were icy and the progress slow. The further they travelled out, the more Isak’s father pressed down on the brake and clutch, hissing under his breath whenever the vehicle lurched too swiftly.

Isak’s nerves were already fraught from these slow hours spent in close proximity to his dad. He had no real desire to even look at him, let alone make pleasant conversation. And then there was the expectation of what was to come at the end of this journey. His anxiety manifested itself through a pounding in his chest and he took several short sharp breaths, fogging up the window he’d pressed his head against.

His stomach lurched as the car jolted again. He felt queasy with motion sickness. It was freezing outside but he instinctively opened the window in order to gulp in fresh air.

“Close it,” his dad told him. “It’s too cold.”

Isak rebelled in silence for a whole ten seconds. When his dad repeated the instruction, his voice sharper, he gave in, pressing the button and watching forlornly as the glass travelled upwards.

“I hope they don’t need me to stay too long when we get there. These roads will be even worse in the dark.”

Isak wasn’t sure if that was an accusation but he took it as one. _How dare you make me inconvenience myself by driving you to your new school? So selfish, Isak. Always so selfish._

“You can just drop me off if you want,” Isak replied, trying to be helpful. His dad sighed.

“I’m not just going to drop you off.” He attempted a lighter tone. “This is an exciting time for you. Aren’t you happy?”

“ _Yaaah_ ,” Isak said, drawing the word out with a petulant sigh. “I can’t wait to be locked away like an English orphan from a... _Charles Dickens_ story.” He was joking, mostly, but his father tutted under his breath, hands gripping the wheel more tightly.

“You should be thankful for this opportunity.”

 _No,_ you _should be thankful_ , he wanted to snap. _Now you have one less dirty secret to worry about in Oslo._

But he stayed quiet. His father looked at him sideways.

“You surely want to put that nasty business behind you, Isak?”

Isak raised his eyebrows. Generally his dad didn’t refer to it at all. _Nasty business_ was positively confrontational for him. But of course Isak had no way to refute it. Not without sounding alarm bells that would require them to _talk_ and _share_ and _fix_.

“Of course,” he replied. “And I am. I’m very thankful.” He spoke more and more like a robot these days, programmed to agree with its owner.

“That’s good. Sometimes we have to make a fresh attempt at things. It takes courage to admit to your mistakes and work on ways to fix them.”

They met each other’s glances for a moment; their similar, thin-lipped smiles, forced to curve upwards, as they conspired not to talk about anything too deeply or sincerely. That wasn’t their style, it never had been. They both enjoyed silence, and for the most part they encouraged it with closed off sentences that needed no answer.

The rest of the journey passed by in silence; the closer they got to the school, the easier the roads became to drive on, salted through in the morning so that grit clung to the worn down car tyres. The school was obstinately listed under the Lillehammer boundaries but they had stopped in the pretty ski town for lunch and it seemed like a lifetime ago.

 _A short drive from Lillehammer_ , the school prospectus had said. _Please note it is not possible to travel between the school and the town by foot._

The rural lanes began to fade away and signage to the school became more frequent. Isak felt the queasiness return and he tried to focus on his breathing, _in and out_ , as his dad shifted the car more confidently into third gear, then fourth. Within the next few minutes the school came into sight, and Isak instinctively closed his eyes before chiding himself and opening them again.

He hadn’t come here to sit the entry exam. They had sent an invigilator to Oslo after his previous school had made enquiries on his behalf. She’d arrived in a smart suit and a briefcase and sat at the front of the classroom in stony silence as he took three papers, one after the other.

The only view he’d had of St. Olav Den Hellige was a combination of the pictures on the website and prospectus and the satellite images on google maps.

The words _Boarding School_ had made him think of rain-soaked architecture from old English-language movies. Miserable, repressed school boys sent away to face a frightening existence of bullying senior boys, strict teachers and haunted bell towers.

The front of the school was grand and imposing, the year of its opening painted on as 1922. But it was painted bright yellow and paradoxically held more modern touches than Nissen, such as the wide, gleaming windows. It was undeniably a beautiful building. It looked positively sunny in the late afternoon light.

His dad, never usually one for excess, let out a small, impressed whistle. “How lucky you are, Isak.”

Isak scanned all he could see, taking it in with curious eyes. There were no students milling around out here. The carpark was almost full. The school building was long and tall and curved round so that he couldn’t see anything to the side of it. Yes, the building was pretty, but it also seemed to him to be fashioned like a sort of prison.

 _Which is appropriate_ , he told himself.

He slipped out of the car seat and stretched out as soon as his feet were on the ground. There was tension in all his limbs as he did so and he felt small nervous shakes run through him. He took a couple of breaths, trying not to give into the familiarity of crippling self doubt.

“Help me with this,” his dad instructed him, as he opened the boot of the car to pull out Isak’s larger suitcase. Isak took the smaller holdall in his hands and gripped it tightly.

When his dad had closed the boot, checked they had taken everything they needed, and locked the car, he turned to Isak with a perfunctory expression.

“Isak, I just need to check your phone before we go in.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

Isak balanced the holdall on one shoulder, fished his phone from his sweatpants pocket and handed it to his father. He watched him key in the pin code. There was nothing on there, he knew that much, but he still felt humiliated at this lack of trust.

After checking it thoroughly, his dad handed it back to him. “All done. Ready to go in?”

Isak gave a small nod, and his father picked up the handle of the suitcase before striding through the carpark. Isak followed him into the building, his eyes trained down to the floor. He told himself that he didn’t deserve to enjoy the view.

 

* * *

 

After waiting in the school reception for fifteen minutes, his dad growing more agitated with each passing second, they were told to leave Isak’s bags behind the desk and then the receptionist took them up a narrow, winding staircase that brought them to the head teacher’s cluttered, cosy office.

The school was as beautiful inside as it was from the outside, or at least this part of it was. Isak had spied more modern looking buildings through the window, but this quarter - ‘the old building’, as the receptionist had referred to it as she gave them a quick verbal tour - still retained the old period features that had been in place when it was built.

“Like those books you used to read. Harry Potter?” his father pointed out. Isak let out a small laugh, not meaning to sound unkind, but it came out too loud, too awkward, and he bit his lip after that and resolved to stay as quiet as possible while his dad did the talking.

The head teacher was, predictably enough, a tall and stern looking man, fair haired and broad shouldered. He was noticeably taller than Isak’s father when they shook hands, and physically had to stoop to reach Isak’s. “A pleasure to meet you, Isak. My name is Principal Haakonsen,” he told him. “Your test scores were most impressive.”

He gestured for them to sit down in the chairs facing his own, and Isak’s father replied, “We’re very proud of Isak’s academic ability. It would have been such a shame if he’d wasted it.”

 _Wasted it_ , Isak repeated back to himself. He kept his eyes trained downwards to his legs, humiliation flaring up inside of him. _Is that really what he thinks I’d have done?_

“Well, at St Olav, we are confident no student’s academic ability goes overlooked.”

“Do you hear that, Isak?” his father asked, frowning at Isak’s huddled, defensive posture. Isak shifted uncomfortably and managed a weak smile.

“Yes. Thank you. I’m looking forward to it,” he said mechanically.

“I can tell you're nervous,” Principal Haakonsen said. “It’s natural, especially for late starters. And scholarship students in particular usually feel that the system will be unfairly weighted against them. But I can assure you, every student at St. Olav is treated fairly, no matter their…. _economic_ status.”

The thought hadn’t crossed Isak’s mind but now he found himself hyper aware of it. Of being a _scholarship student_. He hadn’t even considered that the majority of students here would be fee paying, their families infinitely wealthier than his own.

“How many scholarship students attend?” he asked.

“Four in each year. So a total of twelve.”

 _Twelve out of one hundred and fifty students. Not even ten percent_ , Isak calculated, thinking of the prospectus he’d flicked through before he’d taken the tests.

“But of course,” Principal Haakonsen continued, “the number we take is unimportant. As I said, all of our students are equal in school status. We are a proud school with Christian values and we believe that all students should be empowered to work towards a better future.”

 _He sounds exactly like the prospectus_ , Isak thought to himself. _Trained, rehearsed, soulless._

“Well, Isak will certainly benefit from those types of values,” his father said meaningfully, and the Principal nodded at him with understanding. Isak knew the details of his transfer had been discussed; he wasn’t an idiot.

He just wondered whether he’d be allowed to forget it here.

They talked for minutes longer, until his dad started to shift impatiently. Principal Haakonsen seemed to pick up on his mood and said, “Ah, of course though, you must have had a difficult journey along the roads?”

“It was very slow going, that’s all. I’m quite tired out from the journey. I’d like to be safe driving back.”

“Of course. The school receptionist will fetch you some coffee from the canteen to take back with you. Just ask her on your way out.” He turned to Isak, and Isak forced himself to make eye contact. “Isak, if you can stay here with me a moment, I’ll get a message to the Head Boy to come and collect you. He’ll be able to go through any questions you may have.”

His goodbye with his father was short and not so sweet. _Perfunctory_ was probably the word for it. He’d clung to his mum this morning as she’d cried into his shoulder, and he’d wiped his own tears away before she had the chance to notice and become even more scared by them. He truly felt nothing as his dad pulled him in for a quick, awkward hug before patting him on the back and leaving the room.

Isak sat in silence as he listened to the Principal phone down to reception to tell her to call ‘Even’; Isak guessed that was the Head Boy. He made a small noise of contemplation, without even realising he’d done it, and then folded in on himself when the Principal fixed him with a wry smile.

“I understand how nervous you must be but you must remember, nobody is judging you for your past.”

 _Then why keep bringing it up_ , Isak wondered.

“My uniform,” he blurted out instead, with literally no acknowledgement of the words that had come before. “You provide it, don’t you? For scholarship students?”

“Yes. There is a school supplies shop on campus and they keep second hand uniforms for scholarship students. It isn’t open on a Sunday but you’re welcome to go there before lessons tomorrow to pick some up.”

He saw something like annoyance in the man’s eyes and he realised his question had come out as rude, coarse. He heard his own accent in his head, the lazy dialect of the East side of Oslo, the clipped, rushed way of talking. He cleared his throat and said, “Thank you,” trying to make his voice fit the tone of the room with its high bookcases and expensive but faded furnishings that screamed - no, not screamed, because screaming was vulgar… that _boasted_ \- old money.

But it came out as small and tremulous and he stayed silent after that, as Principal Haakonsen inspected a pile of papers on his desk.

After some time, there was a knock on the door, and the Principal raised his voice to call, “Enter.”

Isak looked up from his lap to see a tall boy standing there. He looked incredibly composed and self assured; tall and slender but with broad shoulders and muscular arms evident under the long sleeved v-neck sweater he was wearing. A handsome face and honey brown hair, pushed back neatly from his forehead. His eyes were a piercing blue and when they fell on Isak, he felt something thud through him that both alarmed and excited him.

He was beautiful. And Isak knew he was gawping slightly, forgetting to move out of his seat, as he heard the Principal introducing them. “Even, this is our newest student, Isak Valtersen. Isak, our Head Boy, Even Bech Næsheim.”

Even surveyed him with a quick flick of his eyes. Then he turned back to the Principal. “I’ll take him to his room, sir.”

_Sir?_

“Thank you, Næsheim. Oh, one moment. A quick word? Isak you can wait outside.”

Isak nodded, moving to the door; it closed heavily behind him and he leaned against the wall beside it, trying his best to hear in, positive they were speaking about him. But the walls were too thick here, the building too well insulated, and all he heard was silence and his own breathing, heavier than he’d have liked it to be.

When the door finally opened again, Even stepped out and appraised him with a lengthier look up and down. Then he began to walk, Isak towing behind him. “Where are you from?” Even asked, a few steps down the staircase.

“Oslo.”

“Oh? What part.”

“Løkka… Grünerløkka.”

“Is that on the East or West side?” Even asked with a small frown. Isak blinked at him, his eyes narrowing.

“Does it matter?”

“No.” Even looked at him with a strange expression on his face. “I was just making conversation.”

“Okay,” Isak said, feeling ridiculous. He hurried to keep up with Even who was leading him down the staircase with determined strides. “It’s on the East. Just about.”

Even stopped suddenly, halfway down the flight of stairs, and asked, “Are you nervous?”

There was that word again. _Nervous._ Everyone could see it in him and the thought disconcerted him. Isak blinked a few times, then shrugged. “A little.”

"Why?”

The question itself wasn’t particularly offensive; neither was the tone. But for some reason Isak found himself taking offence anyway, just as he had with the East and West… _insinuation._

“I guess because this is new to me. I haven’t been to a boarding school before.”

“You get used to it. It’s really nothing remarkable.”

And with that said, the older boy started walking again, and Isak followed him because he had no other choice.

Isak considered himself a people watcher. He’d always been quiet, and preferred his own company because it was safer. He’d got into trouble for it over the years; shoves and upper lips curling in aggression and hands grabbing his hair (“ _What are you looking at faggot?_ ”) and yet he still continued to do it. Because people fascinated him, particularly boys close to his age. He was so bad at making friends, let alone anything more, and he felt a yearning inside him whenever he met someone new. Someone interesting and unknown.

_Someone like this boy. Even._

He took him in from behind, free to assess him openly because Even’s eyes weren’t on him. He tried to work out what he could in these fleeting moments as they passed through empty school corridors, the sounds of their footsteps bouncing off the narrow walls as they were guided by dim standby lights. But there wasn’t much to take in so far. He was self assured and slightly abrupt and he was clearly in a rush to get Isak to where he needed to be.

“You’re going to be in Rondeslottet. The school is split into four houses, and then accommodation is usually split by year group. But your accommodation is more for the scholarship students.”

“Houses? Just like Harry Potter,” Isak said, repeating what his dad had said earlier with a small smile on his face. Even glanced over his shoulder at him.

“Sure. I haven’t heard that one before.”

Humiliation burned at Isak’s cheeks and he bit back, “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

Even looked at him with more interest now, but it didn’t seem particularly friendly. “It’s a system that’s been in place long before any stupid children’s book.”

“Well…”

“Well?” Even repeated back at him, cutting him off. “Do you have any idea how prestigious and historical this school is?”

“Prestigious and historical enough for you to call the teachers _Sir_?” Isak guessed, hoping it would make Even laugh, that it would lighten the mood. He felt vindicated when the older boy puffed out a quick breath that didn’t sound entirely hostile.

“Exactly.”

They came to the back of the old building, leading through to a much more modern looking campus. Isak looked through large glass windows to see a few students sitting in a campus coffee shop, typing on laptops or nursing cups of coffee; across the grounds there were a few boys playing football, wrapped up warm against the bracing November winds.

Even led him past all of this, heading towards a large cluster of student accommodation.

“This is the boys side. The girls are on the other side of the campus. Gated, so we can’t break in.”

“Is ours gated?”

“They wouldn’t _want_ to break into ours.”

As they passed by the boys playing football, Isak heard someone yelling Even’s name; he looked up to see two older boys running towards them. Even’s face lit up and Isak came to an awkward halt as they exchanged greetings.

“Is this the new kid?” the longer haired boy asked. He was pretty rather than handsome, hair flipping into his face as he absentmindedly brushed it away. “I’m Mikael,” he introduced himself. “This is Yousef.”

Yousef gave him a small nod and a friendly smile.

“I’m just taking him to his new digs,” Even explained.

“Rondeslottet?”

Even nodded and Mikael let out a small snort. “Nice.”

“Bro, did you speak to Sonja? She was looking for you earlier,” Yousef said. “She looked pissed.”

“When doesn’t she?” Mikael asked. He looked at Isak and said pointedly, “Sonja is Even’s on-slash-off girlfriend. More on at the moment, I think?” He smiled with narrow eyes and Isak felt himself grow aware of his face, as though it was under inspection. “Do you have a girl?”

“Mikael…” Yousef said warningly.

“What?! I’m just being friendly.”

Isak didn’t know for certain, of course, but he didn’t get the impression that Mikael was being _friendly_. He forced a smile and said, “Not right now, no.” Then he brought his hands up to his snapback and fiddled with it absent-mindedly as the three older boys looked at him, before turning back in on themselves and continuing the conversation about _Sonja_ without him.

He felt himself burning through, embarrassed. Had he given the wrong answer? Should he have lied, told them there was a girl back home waiting for him? He noticed them forming a huddle, their backs turned to him slightly. Even looked happy and at ease; he hadn’t looked like that earlier as he’d been leading Isak through the school.

Isak waited as the conversation drifted from his focus. He looked across the vast playing fields lined with trees stripped bare of leaves and iced with a dusting of snow, and the frozen lake at the end of the campus that stretched out into the sky. In the summer it would be beautiful, but Isak already felt like an imposter here. He doubted he would last as long as the summer.

He shivered against the cold, still not understanding how the events of his life had led him to be standing here, miles from home, dreading everything that was to come and regretting everything that had already happened.

“Anyway,” Even said, his voice raising slightly as he looked back to Isak, “We should go. I need to introduce him to his roommate.”

“Who’s he with?”

“Vasquez.”

Mikael let out a low whistle. “Seriously? Didn’t the school learn about putting another scholarship student with Che Guevara?”

“Yeah, well, nobody else is willing to share a room with him, so.” Even shrugged again.

“Che Guevara?” Isak asked, his voice higher than he’d have liked. He cleared his throat. “Why do you call him that?”

They all laughed at that, and Mikael said, “You’ll see, new kid.”

When they left, they made elaborate gestures of shaking hands and patting each other on the back, and Isak stood separate from it, feeling uncomfortable. He followed Even like a docile puppy as they continued their trek across the fields and onto the walkway that led to the accommodation.

“If you want to know my advice, keep your roommate at arm’s length, get involved with a sport and make friends with your teammates instead. Vasquez is trouble. He’s not going to bully you or anything like that but he’ll make you angry at this school, because _he’s_ angry with it.”

“Why does he go here, then?” Isak asked in confusion.

“Fuck if I know. Just another scholarship student with a chip on his shoulder.”

 _Wow_ , Isak thought. He said sarcastically, “Well, I wonder why they might be bitter, if even the Head Boy judges them like that from the start?”

Even fixed him with a level glare. “That guy you were just talking to, Mikael? My best friend here. Also a scholarship student. So I’m going to need to ask you not to assume shit about me before you get to know me a bit better.” He huffed out a breath, and this time it sounded _entirely_ hostile. “If you’re going to make judgmental comments like that, though, when I’m just trying to offer you some advice, I doubt you’ll get too many opportunities to do that.”

 _Stupid_ , Isak thought. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is why you have no friends. This is why nobody can stand you. Because you speak without thinking. Because you’re so fucking defensive._

“By the way,” Even said, “It’s kind of awkward to tell you this but… your clothes aren’t really appropriate. Did they not send you the dress code?”

“It’s Sunday,” Isak with a frown. “Surely we can wear what we want at the weekends?”

“The school discourages…” Even frowned, trying to find the words, “Streetwear. It’s probably fine in East Oslo but at St Olav we have higher standards.”

Isak looked down at his tatty sweatpants and second hand Adidas jacket that he’d stolen from a thrift store. He tugged again on his red snapback and then took it from his head and ran a hand through his curls.

“I didn’t realise,” he said quietly.

“It’s fine,” Even said. “I’m sure you have other clothes, right? And you’ll get your uniform tomorrow so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Isak thought about the clothes he’d packed. Faded hoodies and jeans that were too big for him and sweatpants worn through with age. He bit his lip and looked again at what Even was wearing; well fitting jeans, and a pale yellow sweater that looked more expensive than Isak’s entire outfit.

 _You shouldn’t be here_ , he thought to himself. _You didn’t think any of this through. You should have thrown that stupid test._

When they got to the far end of the student accommodation, Even pulled a key fob from an envelope he was holding with Isak’s name on the front and swiped it across the electronic panel. There was a small click on the door and he pushed it open. “Simple, right?” he asked, and Isak nodded, taking the envelope from him and putting the fob back into it.

“These buildings are pretty basic. There’s seven to eight students in each of the houses. Some are in single rooms, some share. Some have en suites if they’ve paid for it, some share a bathroom. You’re obviously sharing. There’s a small communal kitchen in each one but they don’t really get used that much, as we get fed at the dinner hall. Vasquez will show you where that it is this evening.”

He led Isak up two flights of stairs and they ended up at the top of the building. The corridors smelled like teenage boy: sweat and weed and general grossness. “Most of the male scholarship students are in this house, so… I guess the school thinks you have stuff in common?”

“Mikael is in this one too?” Isak asked. Even shook his head and let out a small chuckle.

“No. Mikael is in my block.”

They ended up outside a door with loud rap music playing inside. Even knocked on it twice at a reasonable level and then yelled, “Vasquez, open the fucking door!”

The music was turned down a fraction and after some time, a tanned, curly haired boy stuck his head round. He looked pissed off but he was too short, too kind looking, for it to be intimidating.

“Yes?”

“Your new roommate. Isak, Jonas. Jonas, Isak.”

Jonas looked at Isak and his face seemed to soften slightly. He opened the door fully and gestured for him to come in. Isak went first, and then looked over his shoulder to see Even following them.

“Reception have your cases, they’ll send it up to you soon. Jonas can go through the day to day stuff with you.”

Isak looked around the room; it was pretty small, particularly for two sixteen year old boys sharing. It was also a mess, but that was perhaps less unexpected. Jonas settled onto his bed, typing something on his laptop; silence fell awkwardly between the three of them and then Jonas looked up and said, “It’s fine, Næsheim. I can take care of him from here.”

Even looked between them and then flashed Isak a small smile. “Good luck, new kid. You’ll need it.”

He left the room and closed the door behind him. Isak watched as Jonas put his laptop to one side, trekked over to the door and opened it, peering outside and looking back and forth before closing and locking it.

“People like to eavesdrop in this place. Rule number one, always check to see they’ve left the vicinity.”

“Okay,” Isak said. “What’s rule number two?”

“Rule number two… always remember _that_ guy is an asshole,” he said, gesturing to the departed Even. “And _I’m_ awesome.” He smiled brightly and held out his hand. “Jonas Noah Vasquez. Scholarship student and official… _spanner in the works_.”

“Is that why they call you Che Guevara?”

“Besides racism? I mean, my dad’s Chilean, not even Argentinian.” He laughed. “It’s mostly because everyone’s parents here are Høyre voting assholes and I’m anti capitalism. So I’m basically a communist in their eyes.”

“Oh,” Isak said, feeling woefully under-equipped for this conversation. He’d never really understood politics. “Why do you come here, then? You must hate it.”

“I do. But…” He paused, and then shook his head. “I don’t think you’re ready for my truth yet, young Padawan. Tell me a bit about yourself.”

“I’m… I’m from Oslo?” Isak ventured.

“Cool! Me too.” Jonas sat back on his bed and then patted the space next to him, which Isak slipped into awkwardly. He rested his back against the wall as Jonas hogged the pillows. “Which part?”

Unlike Even’s East/West question, Isak didn’t think this one had any ulterior motive behind it. Still, he had to stick to the same lie, so he answered, “Grünerløkka.”

“Løkka?! Awesome man, me too! Fuck, which street. We’re probably from the same place. Oslo is so fucking tiny, isn’t it?”

Isak smiled weakly and nodded but his mind had gone blank. He couldn’t think of _any_ street names. Jonas looked at him, his enthusiasm soon turning awkward, and then he said, “You’re not actually from Løkka then?”

It was stupid, he knew how stupid it was, but he felt tears at his eyes. Løkka wasn’t even a particularly _nice_ part of Oslo, but it still had a far better reputation than Isak’s neighbourhood. He moved his face away and was startled when Jonas grabbed his chin and pulled it back towards him.

“What’s the problem?” he asked, looking genuinely confused. “Where are you from?”

“Veitvet.”

Vietvet was ugly tower blocks and built up residential streets that paled in significance to the rest of Oslo. It was truly a shithole, in Isak’s opinion, and as he lived in one of the numerous tower blocks with his mum - or at least had, before he came here - while his dad had run off to the suburbs with his new wife, he felt more than qualified to say as much.

He waited for Jonas to distance himself, or to make a joke about Isak being trash. This school was so beautiful, and the contrast between the grounds that Even had led him through and the streets that Isak had daily walked through made him want to curl up with embarrassment.

But instead Jonas fixed him with a frown and told him, “Don’t ever lie about where you’re from.”

“I know. It was stupid. I just-”

“No, you don’t understand. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Who cares if you’re from a neglected area of Oslo? At least you know what real life is. You know what it is to have to struggle for money. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“It isin this place.” Isak looked down at his clothes. “I’m not even… I’m not dressed right. Like… most of my suitcase is full of clothes like this.”

“It’s fine. You can borrow my _civilian_ clothes. I made exactly the same mistake as you when I first arrived. After weeks of getting my head shoved down the toilet I branched out and bought some shirts.” He shook his head, curls bouncing. “This place is all about survival. But you’ve got me, so you’ll be fine.”

“Even told me not to get too involved with you. He said that you made the last scholarship student angry at the school?” Isak didn’t know why he was sharing all of this, but he instinctively trusted Jonas. He knew that information on other students was like currency in any school. And he didn’t owe Even his confidentiality.

“That son of a-” Jonas cut himself off, laughing abrasively. “He dropped out because he was bullied. Relentlessly. He was overweight and awkward and ate his hair during lessons. He wasn’t a bad person but he got the shit kicked out of him most days.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Of course, students like Even don’t see that side of the school. They think it’s all _jolly hockey sticks_ because they’re in the elite crowd. Even isn’t a bully, I can say that much about him. But he has no idea what we go through as scholarships.”

“But he’s friends with Mikael? He’s a scholarship?”

Jonas snorted. “A fake one. Mikael’s family is comfortably middle class. They didn’t have a maximum parental income recommendation in place when he applied for it. So he gets a free ride _and_ gets to run with the elites. If Even uses that as an excuse for being _down with the poor kids_ , it’s just that: an excuse.”

 _I guess it’s just the poor scholarship students that have ‘a chip on their shoulder’_ , Isak thought to himself, resentment for Even growing with each new piece of information that Jonas gave him.

 

* * *

 

After an hour or so of talking to one another, and once Isak had unpacked the meagre possession from his bags that had been brought up to the room by a surly school janitor, they headed out for dinner as the sun disappeared behind the trees that lined the campus. Isak shivered against the cold, dressed now in a thin shirt and lightweight jacket that Jonas had lent him, his blonde head of curls exposed to the elements.

He felt like an imposter.

“Is this where I do the Mean Girls bit and explain who everyone is?” Jonas muttered under his breath when they arrived in the bustling, overheated dinner hall in the old building. “First of all, girls eat in their own food hall in their student digs, so they don’t need to watch us chewing with open mouths like _animals_.” He frowned. “It’s annoying. They don’t really let us mix outside of classes. The occasional school event, that’s it.”

Isak gave a small, remorseful smile. Not that he cared too much about girls, at least not in the way Jonas presumably did, but it was odd to go from seeing them everywhere to being forcibly separated from them like unruly children who couldn’t be trusted.

“Third year students get first sitting, seconds get second sitting, and us lowly third years get the scraps left over.”

“Is the food good?”

“You’ll see,” Jonas said with a derisory laugh which Isak took to mean no. “Right, I’ll explain who everyone is once we’re sat down. Why don’t you queue for a bit? I just need to talk to a couple of guys.”

And with that, Isak watched as he headed into the crowd. He felt a small feeling of abandonment in his stomach at seeing him leave, even if it was temporary - it was the first time he had been truly alone today - and he turned his head away, joining the end of the line that had formed as they’d been talking.

He waited in silence, trying not to look around too obviously. He saw Jonas sat next to a stocky blonde boy and a much shorter and skinnier black boy. They were laughing and jostling each others shoulders, Jonas’s hands waving around animatedly as he spoke.

Isak moved forward with the slow moving queue.

When he looked over his shoulder again he saw Even sitting with his friends at the end of the hall. They looked like so much school royalty; their deep laughter piercing the dull sea of chatter, their smiles brighter than the sun. Even sat in the middle, flanked by Yousef and Mikael. He laughed with his whole body and Isak was both warmed through by it and resentful all at once. The feeling panicked him. He turned back to face the front of the hall.

The queue shortened and finally there was only him and two boys in front of him. He grabbed a tray from the end of the counter, looking to see if he could catch Jonas’s eye, when he was suddenly barged into from the side. He stumbled back on both feet, breath tightening as he took in the sight of two boys, older looking, barrelling to the front of the line. The two boys in front of Isak took a step back and Isak scowled at them.

_What the hell?_

“There’s a queue?” he said, loud enough for the third years to hear him. They were already getting food piled onto their plates by the two dinner ladies serving; when he spoke, the shorter of the two raised his eyebrows, took a couple of steps towards Isak and looked him up and down with a smirk.

“I don’t think we’ve met?”

Isak swallowed sharply, wondering why he’d said anything. The last thing he needed to do was paint a target on him before he’d even started at the school officially.

“I was just pointing out… there were people in front of you,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.

The boy was handsome, almost pretty, with fine features, dark hair and flashing eyes. He had a toothy smile that settled somewhere in between genuine and predatory.

Behind him, his taller friend was watching with a bored expression on his face. The students close by had fallen silent as they watched Isak and the third year face off.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you understand the system. We’re third years. We’re prefects. We eat whenever we want.”

 _Just nod_ , Isak told himself. _Just nod and smile._

“You’re new?” the boy asked him. Isak nodded again. “Scholarship?”

“Yeah.”

“Cute. They finally found a pretty one to put in the prospectus.”

Isak glanced down at his tray, embarrassed at the insinuation.

“Come on, Chris,” the tall boy behind him said. “Food’s getting cold.”

“See you around, sweetheart.”

He was left with a humiliated plunge of feelings in his stomach, made worse by the fact that nothing had really even happened. When Jonas joined him again, he muttered, “Did you see those two guys pushing in front of me?”

“No,” Jonas said. “Show me in a minute.”

Isak’s stomach was rumbling and he was glad for the distraction of dinner. But when it was finally given to him, he looked at it in confusion: bare rations of potato, dry meat of unspecified origin and some paltry carrots on the side.

“Is this it?” he asked, eyeing the heated containers, covered by silver lids. He was sure that the third years’ plates had been piled high when they’d left.

“Once you put some credit on your school account, you can have the premium options,” the dinner lady told him. “I’ll need your student card for that.”

“ _Premium_ option?” Isak asked in bewilderment.

“There’s fruit at the end of the counter. You can take as many pieces as you like,” she said with a helpful smile on her face.

He slid his tray to the end and picked up a dull looking banana and a paltry looking apple. Then he followed Jonas over to the end of one of the tables and slid in opposite him.

“So do we just go hungry here?”

“Word of advice, stock up on snacks before each term. There’s a shop on campus but it always sells out of chocolate bars, and they’re over priced anyway.” He smiled at Isak. “Honestly, you get used to the meal sizes. It’s shit, but they want to remind us of where we are in the hierarchy, you know?”

Isak was used to being close to the bottom of the social hierarchy. He’d been passably average in Lower Secondary and it had all gone to shit when he’d started at Nissen. So he knew he shouldn’t have been surprised that it would be any different here, but the feeling it wasn’t just social status but something deeper, something he had even less control of, alarmed him more than he had been prepared for.

“Which guys did you mean?” Jonas asked, when he realised that Isak had fallen silent. Isak glanced around and saw the two boys - Chris, and the taller boy - sat with a large group of boys on the other side of the room to Even and his friends. He gestured over to them quickly. “Chris, I think one of them is called?”

Jonas let out a low whistle. “Don’t piss them off, they’ll make your life hell.”

“Who are they?”

“Just a shitty third year gang that think they own the school. Well, they kind of do. They’re from the richest families so they donate huge amounts of money each year. Chris, the obnoxious one who thinks he’s God’s gift? His dad is Ivor Schistad.”

Isak had heard that name before. He frowned at it. “Wow, you don’t know your politics, do you?” Jonas asked with a small chuckle. “The Foreign Affairs Minister?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh’. And William Magnusson, the long haired one… he’s literally related to the royal family. Distantly, but still. So… just keep your head down. They’re trouble.”

Isak nodded. “Got it.”

“You want to know something?”

He nodded again.

“I don’t trust _anybody_ at this school. Rich people will stab you in the back every fucking time. Just stick with me. You’ll be okay.”

He looked at Jonas properly for what seemed like the first time that day: he took in the dark, intelligent eyes, the easy smile, the untamed curly hair. And as soon as he felt himself doing it he peered down at his dinner and said, “That sounds good to me.”

 

* * *

 

When they got back to their room later that night, Jonas let him in on his next secret, which wasn’t really a secret at all considering the smell lingering in the room that had seemed to engulf the entire student block when Isak had entered this afternoon.

They sat on Jonas’s bed, their backs against the wall, and passed a joint back and forth. It felt good. His mind became more settled, his body more relaxed.

“I sell this,” Jonas explained. “I’m the cheapest dealer at the school. That’s how I avoid the more aggressive hazing. People are too scared to do shit to me because I might cut off the supply.”

“That didn’t help your last roommate,” Isak pointed out. Jonas laughed at that.

“There was no helping him. You might be okay, though. You’ve got that pretty face.”

Isak coughed at that, bringing the joint away from his mouth. “Huh?”

“They’ll like it. The way you look. Guys here… they get a bit stir crazy. I don’t know. Obviously it’s mixed gender but not seeing girls regularly starts to take its toll. Some of them are just… _gay for the stay_ ,” he said in English. “You understand?”

 _Gay for the stay_. Not gay all the time. Just for as long as they needed to be. Isak wondered what it would be like to be able to turn it off and on so effortlessly.

After a while he began to feel himself becoming a little bit more wary; he kept looking at the door, wondering if someone would come in. He darted his head towards the window a few times, hearing noises outside, and when they’d finished the third joint, Jonas told him he’d had enough.

“I might go to sleep,” Isak said. It had just gone nine thirty but there was nothing else he could do, other than look on his laptop at things that reminded him of the life he’d left behind.

He lay in bed for a long time, not sleeping, but not really awake either. He eventually became aware of Jonas moving around, getting undressed for bed, and he squeezed his eyes closed tighter, relieved when the other boy eventually switched the light off.

After a time he heard Jonas’s gentle, even breathing and he rolled over to stare at him in the moonlight thrown past the thin curtains at the window.

 _You don’t get to look at him like that_ , he told himself. _Nobody wants you fucking up their life._

But maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe that was just what everyone had told him.

He took his phone from the bedside table and unlocked it. It was stripped bare of social media apps, parental locks on so he couldn’t download any more apps, and that was fine because he didn’t want to be on Facebook or Instagram anymore.

Instead, he went to the contacts page and scrolled through the short list.

After the truth had come out about him and Petter, about the relationship between them, Isak’s father had made him delete everything. Petter’s number, and his pictures, and any trace of Isak from the internet. _You are never to contact him again_ , he’d told Isak with a furious expression on his face. _A teacher, Isak! A fucking teacher!_

 His mum had remained mute in the corner of the kitchen, her mouth gaping open, barely aware of what was happening, just aware that her son was in pain, that he was crying and scratching at his face and screaming that he didn’t want to live if he couldn’t live with Petter.

It hadn’t made any difference.

But it was stupid. His dad had been stupid, because Isak had memorised Petter’s number. Of course he had. He would never forget it.

Isak typed it back into his phone now and saved it under a purple heart emoji. He smiled and began to type out a message.

_I’m at my new school. St Olav, in Lillehammer. It’s awful.  I miss you. I’m so sorry again. I still love you._

And then he told himself no. No, he couldn’t do this again. This was wrong. This was disgusting. This was why he was here in the first place.

He deleted the message, changed the heart to a red cross. Then he put his phone to one side and tried desperately to fall asleep as the school grounds settled into their own slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: drug use, allusions to bullying, allusions to illegal teacher/student relationship.


	2. The Head Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even's day is less than ideal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so big apology time: I really struggled with writing this chapter due to some of the comments I received for the previous one (some published, some not.) I let it slow me down, because I got very anxious about my writing, and if it wasn't for the overwhelmingly lovely support I had in the form of other comments, and from my friends on Twitter, I'm not sure I'd have got this finished. So thank you, and I hope I won't keep you waiting that long again for a chapter (with that said, from the weekend I'm on holiday for two weeks so I'd anticipate the next chapter will be at least three weeks. But after that it will be regular updates!)
> 
> For those who raised concerns about the feasibility and believability of this fic, I just wanted to address that now. I didn't want to write an unrealistic fic, but I did want to write a boarding school AU as many people had asked for this and it's a writing trope I've always loved reading but have never had the chance to write before. I could have just deposited the Skam characters into some English idea of a boarding school, but I like using Norway as a reference, and thinking about how a boarding school might feasibly work in a country which doesn't really use the system.
> 
> There ARE boarding schools in Norway, and at least one is fee-paying. The main suspension of reality in this fic is that richer people and those in politics are more likely to send their children to a state school rather than a fee paying one. So yes, I understand that this fic isn't very realistic, but I wanted to at least make it plausible, I guess? I stand by the fact that there are societal imbalances in Norway, particularly in Oslo - this was something my Norwegian friend who helped me with the planning of this fic felt very strongly about - but obviously it is more heightened here for the purposes of drama.
> 
> With any fanfic, please remember that it is not intended to be reality, and that writers are allowed to use dramatic license in order to tell a more entertaining story. And also please remember that fanfic authors are only human, and that leaving long detailed comments pointing out why a fanfic isn't plausible can really discourage the desire to keep writing.
> 
> I will always welcome constructive criticism on my fics but not if they're mean spirited. So before you write out your comment, just have a think about how it's likely to make the person on the other end of the computer feel. Thank you. <333
> 
> Now, it's time to get into Even's head a bit! Warnings for the chapter can be found at the end of the document.

 MANDERS. “Well, I mean people in such independent and influential positions that one cannot help attaching some weight to their opinions.”

( _Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen. Act I_ )

 

* * *

 

**Even**

 

The gymnasium at the end of the playing fields stood silent on this frigid November morning. Later, the football team would be out for their warm-up before they hit the pitch, their bodies kitted out in the school’s royal blue colours, filling the field like pins scattered across a map. After that it would see the hourly turnover of reluctant, mandatory gym classes. But for now it was empty, and it was Even’s favourite time of day.

It had just gone 8am when the sun started to rise over the vista of the frozen lake. Even sat outside the building, wrapped up warm in two jumpers and his Canada Goose parka, a joint in one hand as he mentally prepared himself for the day ahead. It had become a ritual, an opportunity to dull his mind slightly before the inevitable crush of noise and expectation weighed down heavily on him.

Even’s hands were frozen through but he hated the restriction of gloves, needed to feel in control of every single nerve ending. He rubbed them against the fleece that lined his jacket, alternating between warming them up and holding the joint. He wasn’t going to let the cold weather drive him back inside. Not yet.

A message came through on his phone and he checked it with one raised eyebrow. Sonja.

_Enjoying your morning self sabotage?_

His mouth dropped into a frown. How the fuck did she even know? He’d been coming earlier and earlier, trying to find a time when his absence wouldn’t be noted, short of escaping from his room in the middle of the night. His accusatory mind turned to Mikael and his frown increased. Were they _colluding_ with each other now?

A few moments later, though, she sent a Snapchat of herself in gym gear, face dappled with red and perspiring lightly from a morning run.

 _Ah_. He hadn’t counted on her all-weather fitness regime, or her capacity to sniff him out from afar even when he was actively avoiding people.

He looked down at the half smoked joint in his hand, swearing under his breath, before bringing it up to his lips again. He’d paid Vasquez over the odds for this and he wasn’t going to add insult to injury by wasting it now.

Besides, he needed it. School had been particularly stressful recently.

Yesterday he’d received a four on his Norwegian assignment, and subsequently received a dressing down from his father over the phone for this apparently _abysmal failure_. The words were expected but difficult to hear all the same; his father spoke with a vehemence that seeped into the chinks of Even’s armour, leaving him defenceless.

Mikael had found the bad grade funny, and Yousef had frowned at him and asked him why it had happened. Sonja had overheard their conversation and told him in no uncertain terms that this is what happened when he didn’t keep a clear head.

Even wondered how it was that he was supposed to keep a clear head when he was surrounded by noise and pressure _every fucking day_.

In addition to this, the new boy, Isak, had yelled at him, and that had been the most irritating thing of all. Particularly as it hadn’t even been his fault. In the morning, Isak had asked him for directions to 5b where the science classrooms were grouped; Mikael had jumped in before Even had a chance to answer, sending Isak to the other side of the playing field when the corridor had actually been on the floor directly above them.

It had been mean, sure, but Even hadn’t been the one to  _say_ it. His conscience was clear. Besides, Isak really should have memorised the school layout by now. He’d been here over a week.

That hadn’t stopped the new boy from confronting him that same afternoon, as Even had come down the looming stairwell which connected the Humanities classrooms, in order to ask him with an incredulous tone why he was going out of his way to make his life a misery.

“I’m not, believe me,” Even had told him. “I’d have to think about you, in order to go out of my way to do anything about you.”

Isak had drawn several sharp breaths, his body fighting the adrenaline coursing through it, and for a moment Even was distracted by his slim figure, dressed now in a hand-me-down St Olav’s uniform that only served to emphasise his discomfort. “If you don’t think about me, don’t be a jerk to me,” Isak concluded, closing the space between them in order to shove past him with his rucksack as he headed up in the opposite direction.

The red blazer was too short on his growing teenage body, the black trousers loose around his waist but snug around his ass and thighs. Even knew it wasn’t his fault; hand-me-down uniforms were slim pickings and Isak’s measurements seemed to defy sizing expectations. But still. He may as well have had a target drawn onto the back of the blazer.

 _If you don’t think about me, don’t be a jerk to me_. Isak’s reprimand spun a web of annoyance in Even’s head that he’d figured sleep would cut through, but this morning he was still fixated on it, and fixations were bad. More than bad. _A cause for concern_.

He finished the joint, watching the spires of smoke twist out into icey puffs. He rubbed his hands briskly against his trousers and stood up, forcing himself away from lethargy and into something resembling enthusiasm.

 

* * *

 

That morning, his assignment came back from Politics - a five, which wasn’t exactly brilliant considering it was the subject he was expected to take at university but wasn’t bad enough to warrant another crisis talk. So, that was one thing to be happy about today.

At break time he headed to the Year Three common room with Mikael and sighed when he saw Sonja wrapped up in a pashmina to cover the bare arms of her gym kit, her smile bright as she waved her hands about animatedly, talking with her small group of friends.

When she noticed him looking at her she broke into an apologetic smile and Mikael let out a braying laugh as they sat on the well worn sofas on the other side of the room. “I thought for sure she’d hold this one over your head, man.”

“Guess I’m just too smooth,” Even replied without feeling. He looked at Mikael and noticed for the first time that he’d scraped his hair back from his face in a pony tail. It made him look older, less approachable. “Who told you to tie it back?”

“Larsson, Norwegian. Fucking racist.”

“Mikael-”

“What?! I’m _Pee-Oh-Cee_ which means Person Of Colour, white boy. I can joke about racism.” He ran his hand down his hair and slipped the elastic off, fanning it out so it fell over his face. “Better?"

“Now you look like a first year again.”

“Does that do it for you? Shall we role play tonight? Me as that innocent new first year. What’s his name?”

Even shrugged without commitment and Mikael smiled conspiratorially at him. “I get it. No name necessary. Not when he’s got-”

But whatever Isak had, Even would have to wait to find out, because Sonja slid into the seat next to him at that moment and Mikael, who lacked any sense of filter around Even, at least had the sense to be a bit more selective around Sonja whenever she graced them with her presence.

“Hello,” she said, and leant forward for a kiss. He brushed his lips against her cheek and then moved them to her parted lips, surprised when she offered up her tongue. He kept his hands at his side but allowed her to deepen it, until she finally pulled back, a satisfied glint to her eyes.

“What are you two talking about?”

“Morning sermon,” Mikael offered, and Sonja laughed at him, her gaze lingering just a little too long. Even picked up the subtle flirtations between them sometimes and it bothered him but probably not as much as it should have done. He was actually more bothered by the fact that they weren’t just open about it.

“The girls and I were just talking about the Christmas dance. Have I left it too late to officially ask you?”

“Isn’t that Even’s job?” Mikael asked with amusement, and Sonja shook her head.

“No. The girls ask the boys to this one.”

“How heteronormative.”

“Well, girls or… whoever. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, I’m supposed to ask, particularly as I'm organising it. So… would you like to be my date to the ball, Even?”

It was a harmless question. For Sonja, school spirit was everything and she’d been throwing herself head first into the social committee since first year. There was literally no reason why Even should have been feeling boxed in by this right now; he’d known her deal since he’d got together with her. In return for her support with his bipolar, he propped her up on his shoulders socially, ensured she shone brighter and more beautifully than any other girl at St Olavs. For some reason he was able to do that. He had the right look and the right upbringing and the ability to make others feel impressed by his presence.

And yet he felt the same flush of irritation that he’d experienced this morning, and he wanted to be evasive simply to annoy her. But she continued to stare at him expectantly, and Mikael looked between them, a curious expression on his face, until he cleared his throat and said, “Bro, don’t leave a lady waiting.”

“It’s just a dance,” Even said. “I’ll be there, I have to be there. And if you want to dance with me when we’re there, that’s fine.”

Sonja gave a short, ugly laugh, eyes flashing with anger, and she stood up quickly. Even looked at her short pleated gym skirt, the over the knee socks creating just a hint of flesh. “I can tell you’ve been at the weed, Even. This is what happens when you smoke. You become disengaged. Difficult.”

“I said I would be there?” Even reminded her, his voice catching in irritation. They stared at each other in a silent battle of the wills.

In the seat across from them, Mikael said in a nasally, American accent, “I feel _very_ uncomfortable right now."

“Okay,” Even said, relenting. “I’d love to go, Sonja. I’m sorry. Like you said, I’m just in a difficult mood.”

She clearly wasn’t completely happy with this admission but she gave into it, brushing her gym skirt down neatly as she leant forward to kiss him. Mikael craned his neck to stare at her ass before giving a silent thumbs up at Even behind her back.

“See you later,” she said to both of them, and strode purposefully out of the common room.

“You’re a braver man than I am, Næsheim,” Mikael said with an amused shake of his head. “Anyone would think you’re _trying_ to piss her off.”

“I just think this whole formal dance culture is weird. Creepy. And like you said, heteronormative,” Even pointed out, and Mikael laughed even louder.

“The richest guy in school hates society events. Who’d have thought it?”

“I’m not the richest,” Even scoffed, pulling out his books so he could study through the next period. Mikael raised an eyebrow at him. “Maybe I’m in… the top five.”

They settled into silence, Mikael tapping away on his phone as Even stared down at the words on the page, attempting to discern why he’d done so badly in that assignment. The texts they were studying seemed underwhelming, uninspiring. No wonder he was doing so badly. He needed to be challenged. Needed to feel something beyond apathy for the work he was given, which he ground out his responses to like puffs of flour.

Later, they heard the voices of the Penetrators carry down the corridors before they’d even entered the room and Even sighed, rolling his eyes heavenwards as Mikael looked up from his phone. If they were planning on staying, the chances of Even being able to focus on his work had just gone from unlikely to non-existent.

“-seriously messing with my head,” William was on the tailend of saying when they took up the numerous sofas in the middle of the room. There were only four of them today, but they took the entire room up like the entitled douchebags they were: bags flung to the ground, legs spread miles apart as they each took separate chairs and sofas, like sitting close to each other meant they would catch something. “Honestly, I’m done with her. Done.”

“Noora?” Mikael asked, and Even sucked in an irritated breath. Why the fuck was Mikael so… so _friendly_ with everyone?

“Yes. She was pissed because apparently she’s meant to ask _me_ to the fucking dance and I asked her and now she’s like… _you’re so entitled Will-helm, stop being such a jerk._ I was just trying to do something nice?!” William made a strangling gesture. “Fucking girls.”

Maybe Noora, a pretty girl in the first year with come-to-bed eyes and non-regulation lipstick that somehow the teachers gave her a pass on, was smarter than Even has previously imagined. Anyone capable of infuriating William couldn’t be all bad.

“Are you planning on moving onto boys then?” Andreas asked, and William shrugged, much to the amusement of the other Penetrators. “Check out Knut’s phone. Some bright spark gave the new kid the lowest locker possible. 8.55 am, Monday to Friday... it’s like a fucking porno show in the first year corridor these days.”

Even watched with suspicion as Knut - a particularly meatheaded, stupid member of the Penetrators - gave an oafish grin before handing his phone to William who gave a low whistle. Chris sprung from his seat to move behind William’s sofa, peering over his shoulder. He grabbed the phone, double tapping to zoom in.

“Fuck,” William commented.

“He’s giving me gay panic dot com,” Chris concluded. “We should put him on The Chart.”

“The Chart?” Mikael asked, grinning. “I thought that thing was sacred? You’re finally expanding your horizons?”

“Just for this one. He’s the exception,” Chris insisted. “What’s his name, anyway?”

Nobody knew. _Isak_ , Even thought. _His name is Isak._ Not that it mattered.

“He doesn’t need a name. Let’s just call him… slut face,” Andreas concluded.

“Baby slut face,” Chris amended. He took his own phone out and began tapping something into it. “Okay. Boobs: N/A. Ass?”

“Ten out of ten,” William said.

“Nah. Eva’s a ten. She’s the only ten. Let’s go… nine. Legs?”

“They’re nice. Thick thighs. Long. I’d go a solid nine there as well,” Andreas said.

“Face?”

“His lips are kind of thin. And his jawline is too strong. Ruins the illusion for me,” Willliam said. “I’d say seven.”

“No. No he’s definitely higher than a seven. Who the fuck cares about how thick his lips are when he’s got that cute little curve to them that you can rest your dick on? I mean his name is literally baby slut face so let’s go... 8.5.” There was no argument so Chris tapped it in.

“Slutiness?”

“No idea,” William said. “You two heard anything? Who’s he rooming with?”

Even didn’t answer. He felt vaguely sick. He’d heard the Penetrators do this with girls before, and he’d ignored that as well. But it never rested easy with him. Even when he’d mentioned it to his father, on the rare occasion he spoke about social stuff, he’d just laughed and said, “Boys will be boys.”

Mikael replied, “He’s in with Che Guevera.”

They all laughed at that, and William smacked his forehead in mock annoyance. “He’s going to be a militant feminist before we know it. Fucks’ sake. Whose bright idea was it to put him there?” He looked directly at Even as he said it, and Even forced himself to answer.

“I don’t know. The school.”

“Okay, we’ll put… a five for now. We don’t know either way. But he _looks_ like he’ll be easy,” Chris said. “Fuckability?”

William and Knut answered eight, while Chris and Andreas both thought nine. So they rounded it out at 8.5.

“And the last two we’ll fill out once he’s sucked one of us off, and let one of us bang him. Awesome.” Chris looked up from his phone, proud of himself. “I’m going to be first for both.”

“Fuck off. I need a distraction from Noora,” William said. “Besides, I saw him first.”

“I think we _all_ saw him first, Wilhelm,” Christoffer replied, and they descended into raucous laughter. Then they trailed back out of the room, already bored with the scenery of the common room, leaving Mikael and Even alone again.

“Poor kid,” Mikael said. “Think we should give him a heads-up?”

Even bit into his lip. It had crossed his mind. When Mikael saw the look of consideration on his face, though, he laughed awkwardly. “Not really! I don’t want William shoving my head down the toilet. Anyway, if the first year girls can handle them, I’m sure _baby slutface_ can.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” Even told him, and the smile dropped from Mikael’s face.

“Bro, sorry, it was just a joke.”

“Just… there’s a reason I hang out with you guys and not douchebags like them, okay?”

“Yeah, I know.” Mikael nodded. “We can tell the new kid if you want? Warn him?”

Even sighed, trying to focus again on his text book. “I don’t know. Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to him.”

Maybe he’d do it tonight. He needed to buy more weed. He’d smoked himself out of a month’s supply in less than two weeks and Vasquez was the only one who sold stuff good enough for Even to convince himself it was worth the mood swings.

 

* * *

 

Coming straight from his own accommodation block, with its private gym and high ceilings and solid, good quality furnishings, to the distinctly grubby looking accommodation of Rondeslottet House was always… an experience. But in some ways Even felt comforted by the objectionable smell and the dimness of these surroundings. At least it actually _felt_ like student accommodation and not an extension of his home.

He climbed the stairs two at a time until he reached the top floor and then knocked once on the door to Isak and Jonas’s room before letting himself in without waiting. If they couldn’t be bothered to lock it, he wasn’t going to afford them their privacy.

Isak was alone when he entered, Jonas nowhere in sight. He was dangling his arms over the end of the bed, turning the pages of a book over as it rested on the floor beneath him. His eyes were fighting sleep. He was dressed in grey sweatpants and a thin white t-shirt and for a moment Even’s eyes focused on the generous swell of his ass, pushing against the fabric, as he remembered the Penetrators’ conversation from earlier.

He coughed, embarrassed, and Isak sat up on the bed, bringing his arms around his torso uncomfortably.

“Where’s Vasquez?”

Isak looked round the tiny room and gave Even a small, sarcastic raise of his eyebrows. “You can call for him if you like?”

“I didn’t ask if he was here, I asked where he was.”

“I don’t know.” Isak shrugged. “Out at Debating club or something.”

“Mind if I wait?” Even asked. He sat down Jonas’s bed, resting comfortably against the pillow as Isak stared at him in confusion. “He’ll be back soon, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, don’t mind me. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of catching up to do,” Even said, referring to the thick text book Isak had been reading from. Isak narrowed his eyes at him, his face almost feline in nature, before lifting the book up from the floor and bringing it to his lap.

Even checked his phone as he was waiting, his heart sinking when he saw one from his father. _We need to talk_. Great. He knew what that meant. He was supposed to run and jump when his father contacted him but something kept him anchored to this room for a while, rebelling silently.

He looked over at Isak briefly, saw the boy’s lips moving as he ran his finger from one side of the page to the other. He looked at the mouth, silent in motion, and thought about what Chris had said about it earlier.

 _Should I….?_ he wondered to himself.

Isak’s stomach gave a loud murmur of hunger and Even blinked up at him. “We’ve just had dinner,” he pointed out. The younger boy’s pale cheeks flushed through with red and he stared down at the page, frowning.

“I’m a growing boy.”

“I hope you don’t waste the food they give us. Nothing worse than a picky eater.” He was only half joking: he knew the food here was basically shit. Still, Isak got it for free, so he had less reason to complain than most.

He frowned, running that statement back in his head and realising how shitty it sounded.

“I mean-”

“Yes, I’m starving myself here because the food is so awful,” Isak cut in sarcastically. “I’m used to gorging myself on cheap kebabs and waffles in East Oslo.”

“It was just a joke, Isak.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Isak sighed deeply and went back to his book, until his stomach rumbled again, at which point he took a frustrated breath of air. Even smiled despite himself. “Maybe Vasquez can give you some weed when he gets back. Take the edge off?”

“His name is Jonas.”

“The guys here call other guys by their last names. It’s not a big deal.”

“You don’t call _me_ by my last name,” Isak said. Even paused, about to argue, until he realised… Isak was right. It had never even occurred to Even to call this kid Valtersen. Valtersen seemed wrong. Impersonal.

“Huh,” he said out loud, thinking about this. “You’re right. Maybe I got confused by... your hair?”

“My hair?”

“I mean, it’s nice hair, don’t get me wrong, but I’m pretty sure you spend longer on it than my girlfriend does. So you can see why I’d get you mixed up with a girl?”

 _Why are you obsessing about his hair_ , he asked himself in bewilderment. 

Besides, he knew it was a dickish thing to say. Isak’s vulnerability and lack of self esteem seemed to radiate in waves from his body, signalling that this was a kid who preferred not to be noticed, who would be happy to never stand out from the crowd. He’d turned up to school on his first day in Adidas, faded through with years of rewashing, and a snapback hiding his curls. He’d tucked himself into it all like protective armour.

“Why do you dislike me so much?” Isak asked. Even took a moment to reflect on how much courage it must have taken him to ask that. Maybe he’d underestimated him. He looked at Isak, at how small he looked curled up on his bed, the textbook pressed to his stomach. His arms were pale and slim, his eyes the softest bottle green Even had seen.

The Penetrators didn’t rate stuff like arms, and eyes, or even hair. Everything was crude and easily definable to them. So no, he hadn’t underestimated him. Even gave this kid two months, tops, before he too dropped out like so many scholarship students before him.

“Like I told you yesterday, I’d have to think about you in order to do that.”

“So are you just in here to enjoy the ambiance?” Isak finally snapped. “Because you’re really creeping me out, sitting on my friend’s bed like that.” His face was pinched in anger, his tone venomous.

“I’m just waiting for-”

“I told you, he’s not here. It’s obvious he’s not here. I don’t know when he’s back but this is our room. It’s _our_ space. And I didn’t invite you in. So please, just go?”

Even saw the pleading in his eyes and he replayed the conversation back in his head, feeling sick with himself. What the fuck was he doing? Why was he tormenting some first year that just wanted to be left alone?

He drew his face into a neutral expression, stood up and stretched. “When Vasquez comes back, tell him to text me.”

“Don’t hurry back,” Isak said under his breath, and Even waited until the door was shut behind him before he let out a deep sigh. Fuck. When had he turned into such an asshole?

There wasn’t really time to beat himself up over it, though. He squared his shoulders, steeled his mind, and started the journey across campus.

It was below freezing outside, the November night as dark and as clouded as Even’s mood. He headed for the old building, greeting the receptionist with a lazy wave, and she nodded for him to go up.

The staircases twisted upwards and he took his time, checking his phone, staring at the various pictures on the walls of head teachers and notable alumni that had passed through this building over the decades. Maybe someday he’d end up on here as well. Some dead, unremarkable white guy.

The Principal’s office sounded deathly silent when he reached it: he’d never been one for filling the quiet with music or anything resembling joy. Even knocked the door and waited, realising with a kick to his stomach that he hadn’t actually warned Isak about the Penetrators’ conversation earlier. The thought was knocked from his mind, however, when the familiar voice instructed, “Enter,” from the other side of the door.

“Hi, dad,” he said, slumping into the familiar armchair by his father’s desk. He received a frown in return.

“How many times do I need to say this? Not in school, Næsheim.”

“Sorry.” He drew the word out, not sorry in the slightest. Then he smiled, his first genuine one of the day, hoping his father would be in a good mood this evening. “I don’t see the problem. It’s not like anyone comes up here.”

“No, but familiarity breeds laziness. If you get used to saying it in the school building, you’ll one day blurt it out around someone who will then no doubt accuse you of benefiting from nepotism.”

 _I did benefit from nepotism_ , Even thought uncomfortably. There had been far more suitable candidates for the Head Boy position, yet somehow he’d been the one voted through. He’d almost deferred it over to Mikael until he’d seen his dad sitting head and shoulders taller than the rest of the audience in the school hall, a rare, proud expression on his face.

Even had accepted the role with a grateful smile.

“Is everything okay?” Even asked, swiftly changing the subject. “Did you get a chance to eat? Should I ask the receptionist to order some takeout?”

“I ate earlier, thank you.” His dad shifted uncomfortably in his chair, always on edge when Even tried to bridge the distance between them. “I wanted to talk to you about the new boy.”

“The new boy?” Even frowned, wondering if he was ever going to escape Isak’s presence today. “What about him?”

“Have you been doing as I asked? Keeping an eye on him?”

“Yes,” Even lied. His father stared at him with a withering expression and Even shrugged. “His roommate-”

“Is not the Head Boy. You are. And part of your role is monitoring the well-being of our first years.”

“He’s fine,” Even said. “I did actually see him just now. He seems to be settling in okay.”

“It’s important you don’t let him get too comfortable, then.”

Even frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure how well his transfer here will go. He brought a lot of issues with him from his previous school. The boy is a trouble maker. I want you to tell me if you see him doing or saying anything suspicious.”

Even’s frown increased, wondering how it was in any way appropriate for his father to be telling him this, particularly in his role as Principal. His eyes flickered across the desk for the first time since entering and he found the answer in the form of an expensive looking tumbler glass, an amber liquid circling the bottom.

“ _Loose lips sink ships_ , dad,” Even said, using an expression in English that his father had said to him on numerous occasions. His hopes for a good-natured conversation were finally gone. His father scowled again, looking to where Even was staring.

“Keep. An. Eye. On. Him,” his dad spat out angrily. “And if you call me dad one more time, I will cut off your allowance for the next three weeks.”

Even felt the familiar rush of humiliation that came from disappointing his father… or maybe it was from disappointing _the Principal._ Even could barely tell the difference anymore. But if Principal Haakonsen required him to keep an eye on Isak, to ensure he didn’t bring his particular breed of casual West Oslo criminality to the school, then that was fine. Even could do that.

He fixed his face, sitting forward in penitence. “I’m sorry, I’m just tired.”

“We discussed the mark for your Norwegian assignment. Your Politics teacher told me you received a five there. Better, but still not quite good enough.” He drummed his hands against the desk, looking for something to occupy them with; he looked at the glass and then at Even and then threw caution to the wind, throwing the rest of it down his throat.

“It was a decent five.”

“It wasn’t a six. Therefore it could have been better.” A long, drawn out silence followed. “You’ll be taking Politics in university. The hard work started two years ago, Even, and I don’t think you’ve quite realised it yet.”

Even nodded. There was nothing left to say except for: “I’ll try harder.”

“Good.” And finally his father smiled like it didn’t utterly pain him to do so. “Perhaps next week we can order takeaway?”

Even nodded, standing up from his chair. The meeting - because that was all this was, a cursory meeting - was over. They wouldn’t get takeaway, they never did.

“Oh, Even?” Even looked across and his father cleared his throat. “There’s a girl in the first year, Eva Mohn. Pretty girl. Her mother has a very senior position with the UN. A good connection there. Perhaps you could ask her to the Christmas dance?”

“Sonja already asked me.”

“Oh.” His father generally approved of Sonja, and couldn’t argue with this. “Well. If you’re looking for someone else, it’s good to have options.”

Even nodded. The only options his father was interested in were those who could further Even’s social standing. He knew how this worked by now.

He came over to the desk, shook his father’s hand - the only physical contact he got from him these days - and frowned when his father leant forward and said, “Remember, you report back to me if you’re in any way concerned about Isak Valtersen. As I said, the boy is a troublemaker.”

Even gave a curt nod, the image his father painted not exactly reconciling with the angel-faced, lonely looking boy he’d been staring at earlier. But still. His father knew more than he did, and he’d spilled as much information as the alcohol had allowed him to.

He turned to leave the office, but even before he’d closed the door, he heard the _glug_ of the whiskey decanter as his father refilled the glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drug use, sexually objectifying language/discussion, alcoholism
> 
> Twitter: @EllOnEarth - I would love to know your thoughts and feelings either here or over there and you can always DM if you'd like questions answered!


	3. The Christmas Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas is almost here, and the students of St Olav are looking for dates to the prestigious Christmas Ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the wonderful response to the previous chapter. I really am enjoying writing this fic, as it's something a bit different for me, and I'm always so happy to read your thoughts and insights into it. <3
> 
> I want to write a little bit about the pairings and intentions for this fic; if you would prefer not to read any sort of spoilers, and if you completely trust my judgement on where this fic is going to end up, I suggest you skip now!
> 
> I know that 'multi shipping' has become almost a controversial term in this fandom and I wanted to be clear from the start with my tagging that this fic would feature both Isak and Even being intimate in different ways with other characters. I am writing an Evak fic, I'm clear on that, but I wanted to write something where they were both damaged to begin with, far more than they were in canon, due to a mixture of past experiences and parental influence. I also wanted to write a fic where other relationships are not treated simply as a barrier that needed to be overcome in order for Evak to be endgame, but where we genuinely learn different things about both Isak and Even through their romantic/sexual interaction with others.
> 
> I do understand that some people come to this tag only wishing to read Evak, and I respect that completely. I do feel that this fic may be a little too much for people who dislike multishipping, and this chapter in particular will kind of reveal why that might be. So, for those of you who are along for the ride: enjoy it! And for those of you who feel this is a good point to stop reading, thank you for reading so far and hopefully one of my other fics can tempt you in the future.
> 
> This fic is in some ways the saddest and darkest thing I've written yet. Isak and Even are both extremely vulnerable in this verse and they will go through some difficult moments. As with all my writing, though, there will always be light at the end of the tunnel!
> 
> The song that Isak sings in this chapter is The Logical Song by Supertramp (NOT the cheesy Scooter version!) - the lyrics made me smile and think of my baby revolutionary Jonas in this verse, so I knew I had to include it.
> 
> Trigger Warnings (strong for this chapter) are at the end to avoid spoilers.

Mrs Alving. “I thought you understood where I’d lost what you call my heart at the time.”

_(Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen. Act II)_

* * *

 

**Isak**

Icy raindrops pattered at the window when Isak returned back from dinner that evening. It was December, the planning of yule festivities and the anticipation of imminently returning home crackling in the air like a bonfire, but he didn’t feel excited. He was exhausted, perpetually freezing, the layer of puppy fat that had protected his cheeks all but gone after a month of poor food and poorer appetite.

He wanted to go home but when he thought through the reality of that, he became snappy, irritable. In short, he was a mess.

Jonas had briefly joked that he felt like an abused wife, never knowing what sort of mood Isak would be in when he came back to the dorm room, but the image conjured up bad memories of his dad yelling at his mum for stupid, insignificant reasons, and Isak wondered if he had that sort of aggression within him, ready to be blown apart like a ticking time bomb. He hadn’t laughed.

He’d tried to be quieter after that, less expressive, but Jonas had noticed immediately, even though he didn’t have much distance of friendship to gauge it by. “Don’t even try that bullshit,” he’d told him one day. “You’re allowed to get angry.”

That had been the night he’d taken Isak up to the roof of the school’s old building, using keys he'd stolen long ago from the caretaker, and they'd stood on the edge of the decades-old flat concrete, their feet almost over the edge, and he'd told Isak to scream. To really _scream._ Isak had looked out over the expanse of frozen lake and the scattered rooftops that became more populous in the far distance as they multiplied out into Lillehammer, lit up like fireflies in the darkness, and he screamed so loud he thought maybe they’d hear him back in Oslo.

But nobody could hear him except for Jonas, his voice lost to the whipping December winds and his own exhaustion, and when Jonas had pulled him back from the edge and held him close, Isak became at once needy and panicked, his body torn between craving this affection and wanting to slap it away.

He began to think that there was a world out there - a world where Petter was living - and yet Isak was here, trapped in his own skin and bones and tied into a school uniform that clung to him, and boxed into a school that clung to him tighter still.

They’d laid on their backs and watched the stars and Jonas had pointed out _Las Tres Marías._ When Isak has asked him to teach him some Spanish words, Jonas had laughed and said, “I only know the rude ones.”

It had been one of the better nights since he’d arrived, even though Isak had been so cold that he shook all through the night after climbing back into bed, Jonas’s phantom touch still pressing into his clothed shoulders.

He was on that same bed now, over the covers this time, trying to copy up his notes from the lesson onto his laptop so he could revise properly over the Christmas break. He was distracted, however, by Eva Mohn; her pretty, infectious laugh, her hair flicks and her sweet lifting presence that turned his own mouth up at the corners, unable to help himself, and made Jonas laugh with his whole body as he skyped her.

_They’re in love_ , Isak thought, but every time he’d asked Jonas about her, he’d received a non committal answer in return.

“Is Isak there?” she asked Jonas, and Isak let out a small noise of affirmation from his bed as Jonas turned the laptop screen round. “Hey, Isak!”

“Hi Eva,” he mumbled, not looking up at the screen. “When is Jonas going to stop leading this conversation round in circles and ask you to the Christmas Ball?”

She gasped at that and laughed loudly as Jonas spun the laptop screen back round, shooting Isak a filthy glare. “I don’t go to social events!” he protested.

“Not even for me?” Eva asked, and Isak was sure she was pouting as she said it. Jonas sighed.

“Not for anyone.”

“Am I just anyone?” Eva asked, flirtatiously. Isak had never really thought about that word - _flirting_ \- but he recognised it when he saw it and heard it, and he often saw it and heard it at St Olav. The back and forth gentle nudging, the small change in tone, from comfortable to the fun side of anticipatory.

Isak realised, soon after he had heard it for the first time, that he had never tried to flirt back with anyone. It wasn’t as though he didn’t experience sexual jolts of energy, in fact it felt like he did constantly: he just didn’t understood how people put themselves up for another’s scrutiny like that.

He put in his headphones, drowning out the conversation as he opened up a new tab next to his open Google Documents tab, crammed full with revision notes for the holidays. He loaded up YouTube and found a random chillout playlist to drown out their voices.

He was lost within his brain, immersed in the repetition of his task, when he felt Jonas’s presence standing over him, forcing him to look up. He clicked pause and took his earbuds out.

“Yeah?”

“That wasn’t cool,” Jonas said, looking a bit annoyed. “I’m not with Eva, you know that.”

“You like her though?” Isak asked, confused. Jonas tightened his expression.

“It’s not about that. She’s nice enough, yeah. But she’s still-”

_Still rich_ , Isak thought. _Still middle class._ Actually, he’d heard that in terms of wealth, Eva was from perhaps the richest family in the school. She was probably in a class of her own.

Jonas paused, trying to think of a way to continue the sentence. “I told you, I’m not here to make friends. That includes relationships.”

“We’re friends,” Isak pointed out, and Jonas smiled at that as he sat down on the bed next to him. “Aren’t we?”

“Yes. But _you_ I can trust. You’re real.”

Isak rolled his eyes at that. “Eva is real. And she’s nice. She clearly likes you, so what’s the problem?”

Jonas shrugged. “You think someone like Eva ends up with someone like me?” He shook his head, laughing slightly, and it sounded bitter and ugly. Isak hated seeing these moments of imperfection from him. He needed to believe Jonas had his shit figured out.

“Anyway,” Jonas said, pretending to stretch with a yawn as his arm circled Isak’s shoulders, and Isak laughed at that despite himself. “Who needs some smoking hot rich girl when we’re two handsome street rats from East Oslo.”

Isak tried to shove him away, and Jonas gripped on, and they wrestled awkwardly with Isak’s laptop still resting on his legs. The headphone jack was pulled out, and the music started to blast out from the shitty speakers; Jonas listened for a moment and then laughed.

“I’m Yours? _I’m Yours_?”

“Are you?” Isak mumbled, trying to make a joke, and Jonas laughed louder.

“I am now I know that you’ve got amazing taste in music.”

“Fuck off,” Isak told him, laughing quietly. “You don’t get to judge me.”

He tensed slightly as Jonas brushed up beside him, taking his laptop and lowering it down to the floor so that Isak’s lap was bare. The music continued to play, a tinny sound that nonetheless prevented this moment from being as weird as Isak sensed it was if he tried to look at it objectively.

“You really should give Eva a chance,” he said, trying to detract attention away from himself. He was sure his cheeks were burnt through with red as Jonas looked at him with too much interest. “She clearly wants you to ask her to the dance, so maybe you should consider it.”

Jonas looked at him more closely and smiled. “Didn’t take you for a romantic?”

“What do you take me for, then?” Isak said, pretending to be insulted, and then Jonas surprised him by bringing his hand to his cheek and pressing the back into it. It was a soft, sweet caress, and Isak instinctively nuzzled his face into it, before gasping and pulling away.

_What are you doing_? he asked himself. _What is_ he _doing_?

“Okay, maybe I kind of take you for a romantic,” Jonas admitted, smiling, his mouth inches from Isak’s. Isak stared up at the ceiling, feeling like his body was splitting in half, into the side that had thought about Jonas kissing him ever since he’d brought up the whole _gay for the stay_ notion, and the side that was tied to Petter, who he irrationally decided would know if Isak ever cheated on him.

“I-” he whispered, shaking his head, “Jonas,” he said, and it sounded like a question.

“Hmm?” Jonas asked him. “Isak, remember, everyone does this. It doesn’t-” Isak watched Jonas’s mouth, unable to tear his eyes away from it. “It doesn’t mean a thing, you know?”

Boxed in, uncomfortable, Isak resorted to humour. He laughed, pushing Jonas’s face away. “Stop trying to seduce me!” he said, his voice gasping and overly outraged. “I’m not some Eva substitute!”

“I’m starting to think you’re obsessed with Eva,” Jonas said, his hands wrapping round Isak’s wrists as Isak continued to laugh, trying to pull away from him. “You’re not a substitute, you’re the fucking MVP, Isak.”

Isak giggled at the corniness of the line, his head tilted back as his chest heaved in amusement, and Jonas took his amusement as a sign of weakness, continuing to push him down until he was rolling on top of him on the bed. Isak felt almost hysterical, really not sure what was happening, but aware that he was actually laughing, giddy, as Jonas laughed as well.

And then he laughed even harder as they both rolled over the side of the bed, landing on the floor with a thump, Isak’s breath temporarily knocked out of him.

“Fuck,” Jonas swore, “My fucking back,” and Isak kicked out at him, trying to lodge himself free; even though he was on top of Jonas now, Jonas clung to his wrists tightly, keeping him pulled close to his chest.

“Serves you right!” Isak told him defiantly, choking out another breath of laughter as Jonas moved his hands away from his wrist, before sliding them along Isak’s thighs, pulling them apart so that Isak was straddling Jonas’s body.

When he gasped again, it wasn’t laughter, but a jolt to his dick, as Jonas’s hands came to rest on his ass. When Jonas looked up at him, beginning to squeeze, Isak felt his body become squirmy, warm all over.

“What… what are you doing?” he asked, and Jonas whispered, “Isak, I told you, everyone does this.”

_Not everyone believes it’s real, though_ , Isak thought to himself. _Not everyone knows how to switch this off and on like a power supply._

But… still. Jonas was staring at him, his hard dick pushing into Isak’s thigh, and his mouth was inches from Isak’s, and Isak played with an image in his mind: reckless, uncaring, kissing a handsome boy because he wanted to, not caring about stupid things like love and affirmation and the way Jonas’s fingers felt against his skin. 

He brought his mouth down to Jonas’s, wondering if he was doing this right, his eyes squeezing shut after he found Jonas’s wet tongue licking into his parted lips.

“Okay?” Jonas asked him, pulling away briefly, and Isak nodded, telling himself this meant nothing.

He yelped when, in the next moment, Jonas grabbed his waist and rolled over, Isak trapped underneath him, body pressed into the carpet, Jonas now above him and looking down. “Better,” Jonas said, and Isak nodded as he let Jonas take the lead.

His whole body felt as though it was lighting up, each of the pleasure points he knew about and didn’t know about. His legs were spread open, letting Jonas push in between them, and an image flashed through his mind as he became more aware of his own body. Petter, watching him, telling him: _I guess I was right about you. I guess the whole school was._

Isak pulled his mouth away and Jonas looked down at him, confused. “Okay?” he asked again, and this time Isak whispered, “I want to stop.”

Jonas nodded, confused, but pulled away immediately, and they both jumped when someone banged loudly on the door. Isak was on his feet in a second, Jonas close behind, and Isak slumped back onto his bed, instinctively reaching for his laptop to cover himself up with, as he watched his roommate head to the door and unlock it before opening it.

Christoffer Schistad stood on the other side, his shoulders square and defensive, as though he was expecting to have to fight someone in this dorm block at any moment. Isak blushed, looking down at the laptop screen, wondering if the third year boy would be able to tell that he and Jonas had just been kissing.

“Vasquez,” Chris said, nodding slightly. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Jonas pulled away from the door, giving Chris enough room to enter, before closing it and locking it behind him. Isak felt his cheeks burning as an awkward silence descended, Jonas heading under his bed to pull out his weed supply from the locked security box underneath.

Chris waited, looking round the room with a disdainful expression on his handsome face. Not that Isak was looking at him, of course, but.... Chris’s presence was jarring. After a few seconds, Isak became aware of Chris’s eyes on him. They weren’t drifting anywhere else.

“Yes?” he finally asked snappily, and Chris’s mouth pulled into a smile.

“I was wondering when you’re going to sign up for the long distance running team? The school programme needs new blood, and with your build you’d be perfect.”

“I’ve never tried running in my life,” Isak told him, skin prickling at the way Chris’s eyes had run over him when he’d said ‘your build’. “I doubt I’d be very good.”

“I’m sure there would be some team members willing to tutor you.”

“Well, I’m focusing on my studies,” Isak said, trying to ignore the edge to Chris’s voice. “I’m exempt from sports until I’ve got my average up.”

“Shame,” Chris said. “You’ll find far more school spirit in the locker rooms than you will in this dump,” he said, screwing his nose up. “Tell me if you change your mind, I’ll introduce you to the need-to-knows.”

“Awesome,” Isak replied, his voice neutral, and Chris smiled at him as Jonas stood next to him, holding out the weed impatiently with his hand outstretched for money.

“Are you going to the Christmas Ball, at least?” Chris asked, ignoring Jonas completely. “Maybe I can introduce you to a few good guys there?”

“Are you asking him to be your date?” Jonas asked sarcastically, and Chris finally turned to look back at him, an amused expression on his face.

“Maybe. So what if I am?”

It was possibly the single most awkward moment of Isak’s life; he literally had no idea how to respond, not even sure if his reply was necessary. He watched, dying a little inside, as Chris winked at him before thumbing through some krone, handing it over to Jonas who counted it quickly before pressing the clear plastic bag into his hand.

“I guess we’re done here,” Chris said, his voice amused, bordering on high pitched. “See you around, Isak.”

After he left the room, Jonas did his usual routine of waiting a minute before checking Chris wasn’t lurking outside; once he was satisfied he locked the door and turned to face Isak, laughing.

“What the fuck was that?!” he asked, laughing, and Isak felt his body relax despite himself, giving into the laughter as well. “Bro, he has _such_ a crush on you?”

Immediately Isak felt his laughter cut off, faced with a statement he wasn’t expecting and didn’t want to hear. “No!” he said sharply, screwing his face up. “He’s a dick.”

“Yes, a dick with a crush.”

Isak made a _pfff_ sound under his breath, but Jonas wasn’t listening: Isak looked to see him thinking hard, his face developing from amusement into something else. “You should go with him. To the ball.”

“What?"

“I mean it, Isak.” Jonas was looking excited, flying over to his laptop and loading something up. “Look. Just come and look at this.”

Reluctantly, Isak left the safety of his own bed to come and sit next to Jonas, conscious this time not to sit too close. But Jonas had no interest in _that_ now; he was entirely focused on the document loaded up on his screen, entitled ‘SO Dossier: Important’.

“Look,” Jonas urged him, scrolling down, and Isak saw multiple notes, snippets of conversations, pictures of the St Olav’s students - particularly the Penetrators - acting like entitled assholes; if they were drunk and raucous, Jonas seemed to have pictures of it.

There were even some videos, the most damning of which was William kissing Noora while his eyes travelled over her shoulder, clearly appreciating some other girl’s ass as she walked by.

“It’s all pretty small scale right now,” Jonas explained to him, “But I just know these guys are assholes. The worst thing I’ve got on them is that they use weed, but that shit obviously implicates me. I need someone who they actually trust, because they’re all suspicious of me. I went in too hard with the whole militant communist thing, now they just think I’m a _21 Jump Street_ plant.”

“So why are you showing this to me?” Isak asked, not really getting it, and Jonas raised his eyebrows at him.

“They don’t trust me but Chris _likes_ you, Isak. Like, I’ve never seen him be that nice to anyone, not even William, for fucks’ sake. You should go to the dance with him.”

“I’m not-” Isak shook his head at the thought. The thought was absurd, ridiculous. And then he gasped as Jonas pulled him close, his lips nuzzling at his neck.

“It would mean a lot to me.”

“Fuck you, Jonas!” Isak says, pulling away. “You can’t just-”

But Jonas did; he kissed him again, and again, and Isak felt himself caving, if only Jonas would keep his lips on his neck and on his mouth for longer. “You could get some really good stuff on him, I bet,” Jonas told him between kisses. “I need this. The fucking country needs this. These douches are the elite class, you know? They need to be reigned in, in case that power goes to their head.”

“So what are you hoping for?” Isak asked, somehow managing to think this through as Jonas pressed soft kisses to his cheeks and the corners of his mouth and Isak tried to squirm away. “You want… you think a _gay_ scandal is something to blackmail him over?!”

Jonas looked affronted by that accusation. “I’m not interested in him liking guys, Isak, I’m not a homophobic asshole. I’m just- I’m sure he will fuck up, okay? And if you get to know him, just a bit, you can let me know when that happens.” He looked at Isak pleadingly with his soft brown eyes. “ _Please_ , Issy? Please go to the ball with him?”

“My name is Isak,” Isak corrected him. “And _don’t_ look at me like that.”

“Just one night, okay, to get to know him? If he’s terrible to you, fine, I won’t keep hassling you to do this.” Jonas leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. He really was way more tactile than Isak had initially assumed. “Don’t you think it would be kind of cool, being an undercover agent? You’d literally be doing this for the good of our country.”

Isak rolled his eyes. “Stop exaggerating. He’s not going to do anything that you can implicate him for when he’s an adult.”

Jonas smiled at that. “The last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom literally fucked a pig while he was at university, Isak. You’d be surprised at how gross these posh boys can be when they get together en masse.”

Isak’s jaw dropped open. “What? No! That didn’t happen?!”

“It did! He fucked a dead pig’s mouth or something. Someone who knew him wrote a book about it. It was pretty big news at the time?”

“Jesus Christ,” Isak replied, feeling horrified. “That’s messed up.” He screwed his nose up, bringing his face away from Jonas’s. “I don’t think Chris is that messed up.”

“Well that’s what we’re going to find out,” Jonas told him. It seemed like the outcome of this conversation had all but been decided and Isak figured that as Jonas had essentially boxed him into this corner, he could play an ace card as well.

“I’ll do it,” he said, and Jonas leant forward happily, trying to kiss him again, “But only if you go with Eva.” His hand pushed against Jonas’s mouth, shaking his head. “I mean it, Jonas. Go with Eva, stop _this_ ,” he said, referring to the weird, opportunistic intimacy between them which Isak knew meant nothing to Jonas and everything to him, “and if Chris asks me properly, I’ll agree.”

Jonas narrowed his eyes with mock distrust before huffing out an agreement and holding his hand out. “Fine,” he said, as Isak shook it. “I guess we’ll both have dates for the ball, Cinderella.”

 

* * *

 

 

The week was rain-sleeted, freezing; excitement at the upcoming festivities turned to impatience and classes became pressure cookers with none of the warmth.

Isak had begun to notice something strange. Boys in the third year - boys he knew were part of Chris’s inner faction - started being nice to him for no reason at all. One, a tall, broad shouldered blonde guy called Andreas, randomly offered to buy him lunch one day at the canteen, urging him to choose a cake to go with it. “You’re a growing boy,” he told Isak, winking at him, before heading back to his friends.

On another occasion, he was attempting to navigate a huge, deep puddle that had waterlogged a whole outdoor pathway that led down to the old building; suddenly he’d felt strong arms around his waist, and he’d embarrassed himself with a surprised scream before he realised that William Magnusson, of all people, had hoisted him up and was stomping him across the puddle, which barely reached the tops of his feet.

His firm grip around Isak’s waist had temporarily knocked Isak into a weird kind of reverie; he leant back against his chest before he knew what he was doing, and was oddly disappointed when William got to the other side, dumping him unceremoniously back on his feet.

“What the fuck?!” Isak had asked, but William just looked at him oddly, as though he couldn’t understand why Isak was annoyed, before pointedly telling him “You’re welcome.”

With each passing day, his fears that Chris genuinely would ask him to the ball dimmed a little less, but his anxiety over every other aspect of the school grew exponentially. Another of Chris’s friends, Knut, actually asked him - or rather ordered him - to go to the dance, “As no hot chicks seem to appreciate my charm.” Isak had stared at him for a full five seconds in disbelief before realising he was meant to answer.

“That’s, uh, okay,” he said, “I’m not-”

But he didn’t finish the sentence; luckily at that point a teacher had yelled at them to get to class and he’d headed off briefly as Knut muttered something under his breath.

By Friday, the day before the dance, he felt neurotic, like this whole week had been some weird elaborate joke, the punchline of which would never be revealed.

He was heading to his final lesson of the week when he saw William, Knut and Andreas in the corridor up ahead of him, looking as though they were waiting for someone. He knew he couldn’t face them right now, his skin feeling prickly, the school shirt suddenly too tight and too restrictive round his neck.

Diverting, he backed into a door they weren’t supposed to go through, leading to a corridor that twisted round to the service area of the school. He recognised vaguely that this was the staircase that led up to the roof, and the need to gulp in air - fresh, clean air; not the damp-trodden old book smell of the school - engulfed him. He headed up the stairs, praying the door would be open, barely aware that he’d get into trouble if a caretaker found him, but registering somewhere in his panicked brain that this was wrong. Restricted.

It was all worth it when he burst out onto the roof through the unlocked door, the wind rushing towards him like he was a seagull flying away from here. He stumbled forward, taking in deep breaths of air, trying his hardest not to cry.

He felt stupid, sloppy; his reactions were so erratic, his mind everywhere and nowhere. He had no place to be and yet he’d never wanted to leave somewhere more.

As he was heading towards the perimeter of the roof, wondering if he should just do himself a favour and let the winds decide if he was to topple over the edge that day, he heard someone clearing their throat, and he froze for a second, terrified.

He was going to be in so much trouble.

Nervously, he looked over his shoulder and saw Even leaning against one of the dormers, a roll-up clenched between his hand.

“Hi,” Isak said stupidly, trying not to stare. Of all the boys at St Olav, Even was the only one that made it difficult for him to look away. “I, um-”

“This isn’t a safe place for you,” Even told him. Isak nodded, continuing to feel stupid, as he watched Even inhale the joint. “Not a safe place for anyone,” Even muttered, his words almost lost to the wind. Despite himself, Isak drew closer to him.

“I needed some air,” Isak told him. “Please don’t say anything.”

Even acted as though as he hadn’t heard him, puffing quickly, and Isak bit into his lip, wondering what he was supposed to do.

“I should go down, I guess?” he said out loud.

“They’re fakes,” Even told him, and Isak smiled at that.

“Okay?”

“Sometimes you just need to get away. Sometimes you need time to breathe.”

Isak nodded, opening his mouth to agree, when Even continued to talk. “The truth is they can’t handle anything outside of their little enclosed ideals. They think that expressing yourself is bad. They want to stifle creativity, they want us to act in a certain way depending on how much money we have, or the colour of our skin, or… the length of our hair, or what we wear.”

Isak thought back to that first day; Even looking at his clothes, his voice nonchalant as he told him they weren’t suitable. “Well maybe if you stand up to that sort of-”

“They don’t let you!” Even said, as though Isak had said something absurd. “They just… they get you while you’re young. They do just enough to scare you; they drink in front of you and yell at you and when you try and say ‘this is wrong’ they-”

He looked at Isak wildly, blinking, and Isak stared down at the ground, not sure if Even particularly cared if he was there or not.

“Happy holidays, though,” Even said, grinning. “Merry Christmas, peace to all men!”

“Not to me,” Isak replied. He was confused by Even’s behaviour but if Even was barely going to acknowledge him, just rant at him, he could rant just as well back. “I have to go home to my crazy mum, pretend everything is normal as she checks the door is locked fifty times, just in case.”

“Crazy?” Even croaked out, and this time he finally seemed to see Isak. “Your mum is _crazy_?”

“She’s mentally ill,” Isak confided. “She complicates everything so much more.”

He watched, confused, as Even’s mouth twisted up in a mockery of a smile. “You complicate it enough yourself, East Oslo. Did you ever maybe think you’re the one who made her that way?”

Isak recoiled as though he’d been slapped. Nobody had ever said his worst fear out loud, and yet here was Even, accusing him of it.

“Think before you talk about _crazy_ people,” Even said, his tone unforgiving. He laughed out loud, then, his tone becoming distant again as he took a drag of his joint. His smile was absurdly beautiful, brighter than the sun. “We can’t all be neurotypical, Karen!”

“We can’t all be fucking rich entitled assholes either,” Isak spat out. Even laughed even harder at that.

Isak had heard enough; he headed back indoors, tears spilling down his eyes, hating Even Bech Næsheim almost as much as he hated himself.

When Chris saw him later that day, huddled up on a windowsill overlooking the playing fields, his breath on Isak’s neck as he leant over and asked him if he wanted to go to the ball with him, Isak agreed immediately.

As soon as Chris had left, grinning from ear to ear, Isak pulled out his phone and texted Petter for the first time since he’d arrived. _I miss you_ , he typed. _Please tell me you miss me too? xxx_

 

* * *

 

The next evening, Isak looked through his wardrobe, assessing his fashion choices, but there really wasn’t much to say: the ball was classed as formal, which meant he needed to wear a suit, and the only suit he had brought to St Olav was one that was at least two decades old, and too big for him. His dad had given it to him as it was a requirement on the clothing list.

“I bought it for university,” he told Isak, “So it really should be fine for boarding school.”

“It wasn’t, in fact, fine,” Isak muttered under his breath as he held the suit up to him now in front of the mirror. Jonas cackled under his breath, swigging from a hip flask of vodka as he stood bare chested, fashionably vintage suit trousers clinging to his lean frame.

“Just put it on,” his rooommate urged him, and Isak sighed before stepping into the trousers and pulling them up. Large on him when he’d tried them on at home, before he’d lost weight, they now promptly fell down, even after doing them up.

He tried them with a belt but he knew he looked ridiculous. Poor. The only place they fit was round his thighs and ass, which was the last place he wanted to draw attention to.

“I think I’ll just wear my school trousers,” he muttered, and Jonas shrugged, picking out a shirt, as he hummed gently to the songs blasting out from his laptop. Isak pulled on a clean pair of school trousers and then buttoned up one of Jonas’s shirts. The suit jacket, that he knew would swamp his shoulders, seemed to stare at him from its vantage point of the hanger on his wardrobe, and he glared back at it balefully.

“Do you think this looks okay?” Jonas asked him, and Isak actually heard the first creeping sounds of nerves in his voice. Isak looked at him and felt that familiar skin pricking whenever his gaze drifted appraisingly over Jonas.

“More than okay.”

“Yeah?” Jonas said, his tone dipping playfully. “Will you dance with me tonight?”

“I thought I was being a secret agent?” Isak questioned, raising one eyebrow. “We can’t _fraternize_ with the enemy.”

He was aware of Jonas moving closer, that weird energy sparking between them again, and he gasped softly when he felt his friend’s hands at his hips. “Fraternize?” Jonas’s hand reached for his hair and Isak steeled himself, dodging away from him.

“Speaking of the enemy, did you hear that Even was sent home yesterday evening?” Jonas asked, pulling away with no embarrassment. Isak thought back to their strange encounter yesterday, which he’d told nobody about. “This happens every once in a while. Even gets sent home under mysterious circumstances and all of his friends pretend that it’s all completely normal. I personally think he smokes too much weed and gets paranoid, you know?”

It made sense, Isak thought. Even  _had_ been smoking when he’d seen him, and he _had_ sounded pretty paranoid.

“So,” Jonas told him brightly, “That’s one less dickhead third year to have to worry about.”

Isak looked at him, shaking his head slightly, and then he pulled away when the next song started up: he smiled at it, remembering it was one his mum had played when he was younger; he used to laugh at the strangely high pitched voice, before he’d listened to the actual lyrics and sung along with no concept of how sad they actually were.

“This is your song!” he said, and now it was Jonas’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Listen to it! It’s on your playlist, man, how do you not know this song?! It was literally written for you!” Isak giggled. “ _But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical_ ,” he sang, and he giggled harder as Jonas’s mouth started to creep up into a begrudging smile. “ _And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable. Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical…”_

“I mean,” Jonas rolled his eyes as Isak trailed off, looking for his approval, “That is pretty me.”

“That’s not even the best bit,” Isak told him, catching the strain of the song again, before continuing, “ _Watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical, liberal, oh fanatical, criminal. Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're acceptable. Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable_.”

Jonas was belly laughing at this point, shaking his head. “Stop, this is creepy, man, this is exactly what my Politics teacher tells me every lesson!”

Isak smiled, happy to have taken Jonas’s nerves away, if only for a moment, and when Jonas pulled him into a hug he realised he’d managed to calm himself down in the process as well.

“I really am glad you’re here, Issy,” Jonas told him sincerely, and Isak didn’t even correct the stupid nickname this time. He let Jonas press a kiss to his cheek before checking his watch. “Guess I’m gonna go meet Eva,” he said, taking a breath. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need it,” Isak told him. “Wish _me_ luck instead.”

“Yeah, good luck. You really, really do need it.”

Isak laughed as Jonas shut down the playlist, fiddling with something on his laptop for a moment as Isak went back to getting ready, trying to style his freshly washed, way too fluffy hair.

“In all seriousness,” Jonas told him, “Don’t… don’t worry about this _undercover_ thing if you don’t want to. Just get to know Chris tonight. Who knows, I could be completely wrong about him.”

Isak nodded, hoping he was wrong.

“See you there,” Jonas said, before leaning forward and ruffling his hair, messing it up again. Isak let out a yell of annoyance which softened into a fonder expression once Jonas was out of the room. He finished getting ready, checking himself again in front of the mirror, hating what he saw there. He put the jacket on and realised how utterly ridiculous it looked, like he was a kid playing dress up in his dad’s suit.

And underneath it all was the persistent thought: _why does Chris even want to take you?_

As far as Isak was aware, for all the weird blurring of sexual boundaries at the school, very few students were actually ‘out’, and Chris certainly wasn’t one of them. Isak knew in theory it didn’t matter: people didn’t have to prescribe to a label, maybe Chris had a fluid sexuality? Isak knew he dated, or at least hooked up with, girls. But for him to take a guy to an actual formal event? That seemed like a big deal, and not typical at all of the way he and his friends conducted themselves.

When he finally heard the knock on the door, he shed his jacket quickly, not wanting to open up it looking stupid.

Chris stood on the other side, handsome and lean in a burgundy red suit, a black shirt and tie. Isak smiled at him, eyes travelling down shyly, as Chris took in what he was wearing without commenting.

“You- that’s a nice suit,” Isak said, and Chris nodded, mouth pulled into a smirk, before he pushed Isak back into the room and closed the door behind him.

“You look cute,” Chris said, not looking at his clothes, his eyes trained on Isak’s face, and Isak found himself smiling, trying to relax now that his body had begun to tense up again. “Are you looking forward to this?”

“I’m, um, a bit nervous.” Isak shrugged. “It’s okay, though. It’ll be nice to… to meet your friends properly.”

Chris laughed at that. “You don’t want to meet my friends, they’re assholes.”

He was closer now, in Isak’s personal space, and Isak felt his breath hitch slightly when they were toe to toe. “Speaking of which, heard that roommate of yours is taking Eva Mohn?”

“And?” Isak asked, defensive, but Chris seemed amused by this.

“It’s fine, it just surprised me. I thought he was very much against school conventions like this.”

“Well, he really likes Eva,” Isak said with certainty, and he thought he saw a brief flicker of irritation cross Chris’s face before he disguised it with a nod, as if considering this.

“You and he haven’t-”

“No,” Isak said, too quickly. Chris chuckled.

“It’s fine, blondie. It’s not like we don’t all do it. I’ve sucked William off a few times, it’s no big deal."

That threw Isak a little: he tried to picture it, then wondered why he’d want to picture it. He tried to look nonplussed but then Chris leaned closer, assessing his cheeks. “You’re blushing!”

“I’m not.”

“You look so pretty, Isak! Are you thinking dirty thoughts about me and William right now?”

“No!” Isak turned away, embarrassed, and he was going to put some distance between them when he felt Chris wrap his arm around his waist quickly, pulling him in close so that he was pressed into Isak’s back. “Chris, stop-”

And then Chris kissed him, his mouth at Isak’s neck, his lips pressing into Isak’s jaw as he brushed his fingers into the fold of the shirt, pressing into the bare skin of Isak’s stomach, and Isak stopped asking him to _stop_.

Now his head was full of yes, full of _I need to be touched like this again and again_ and he arched his back into it, wanting nothing more than to feel Chris’s fingers on the other parts of his skin, pressing into other types of creases.

“You know what you are?” Chris said into his ear, the words a whisper that echoed through Isak’s head. “Hot little slut.”

Isak nodded. Of course he knew that.

He wasn’t surprised when Chris pushed him to his knees. Petter had talked about it so many times but had never dared; he’d sent him messages telling him of all the ways he imagined it would be when they finally fucked, and Isak had never felt so needed in his life.

He felt needed now, again, and it continued to thunder within his brain. Down here, he had a strange feeling of belonging. If he did this, he thought, maybe Chris would touch him again. Maybe he’d hold him against his body tonight as they danced, wrapping his arms around Isak and making up for a lifetime of a lack of physical contact.

When he took Chris’s cock in his mouth, the hard length of it slipping in easily but then heading downwards, to the back of Isak’s throat where he gagged and spluttered on it, he closed his eyes and tried hard to do this well. He found he _did_ want to do it well, because he thought maybe this could be something he’d be good at, with practice.

Chris was looking at him, tugging his hair slightly. “Look up,” he said, “Don’t get lost in that pretty head of yours. Want you here.”

Isak made a small sound, almost a moan, trying hard to get this right. He thought about doing this every day, of Chris being the one boy at this school who needed him, who understood him.

“That feels so good,” the older boy told him. He’d pulled out slightly, letting Isak run his tongue over it. “Keep… keep doing that. Keep your lips tight.”

Isak panted, his slack jaw tightening, wanting so hard to make this good. Images of him and Chris - out on the field during the summer, Isak’s head resting on Chris’s chest; Chris sneaking him into his dorm at night, spreading Isak’s legs, thrusting into the heat between them before pulling him close, kissing him, telling him he was the only one - played through Isak’s mind like a movie reel.

And as Chris drew close, he began to thrust harder, making Isak gag again, and then he pulled his hips back, pulling his cock free from Isak’s mouth with a wet suctioned pop, Isak keening needily but not really recognising the sounds he’d found himself making.

He watched, looking up in confusion, as Chris jerked his dick, the end wet with Isak’s spit and pre-come. “Keep looking,” he said, and Isak did as he was told, unsure why Chris would want to do this over being in Isak’s mouth.

His question was answered when he felt Chris offload onto his face, Isak closing his mouth in surprise, moving his head down, feeling it in his hair. It was wet and sticky and gross and Isak’s stupid romantic ideas disappeared the moment he felt himself soaked through.

Chris grunted one final time, his large dick now looking obscene as it dangled in front of Isak’s face. Isak blinked away tears, wiping at his eyes, his body beginning to shake as he realised what had just happened.

“What are you-” he started, and then he froze as he realised Chris had pulled out his phone, pointing it at Isak’s face as he took a picture. Maybe more than one picture. Isak turned away, but it was too late. “I-”

“Fuck, you were so hot, couldn’t resist,” was Chris’s answer. Isak felt stupid as he blinked down at the floor, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

“I don’t want that… I want you to delete that,” Isak said, and Chris just laughed, as though he was suggesting something unreasonable. “Chris, please, I-”

“Everyone does it,” Chris replied, which seemed to be the mantra at this school. “Lighten up, pretty boy.”

Isak felt himself shivering all over. He didn’t understand what his body was doing. Less specifically, he didn’t understand what his body even was, anymore.

“My hair,” he said weakly. “You… I’ll need to wash my hair again. I can’t-”

“Oh,” Chris said, frowning. “Yeah, about that.” Isak finally made himself look up at him again. “Look, Isak, no offence but… you’re dressed in fucking school trousers and a shirt that’s barely formal. That suit jacket looks huge. I don’t… I don’t think you’re going to have a good time tonight.”

Isak frowned. He didn’t want to admit to himself what Chris was saying. The meaning behind it.

“What if I-” he started, but Chris cut him off with a headshake.

“I doubt you’d have fun, anyway. These dances are pretty, you know, traditional. Why don’t you just wait here? I’m sure Jonas will get bored soon, anyway. You’ll have more fun together.”

“But I wanted to come.”

“And that’s cute, but like I said, it’s for the best if you stay here.” His voice had a harder edge now. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

The implication was clear. _Not tonight, you won’t_.

Isak continued to kneel on the floor as Chris pulled his suit jacket back on, checked his hair in the mirror and then headed out of the room. From the courtyard downstairs, Isak could hear music drifting up from the hall. People laughing, screaming, as they made their way over to it.

He stood up on shaky legs and walked over to his desk before slumping into the chair. In front of him, he saw his phone light up.

Petter.

_Miss you too, so much.  We’ll be together Isak, you just need to be patient._

Isak smiled, and held the phone to his chest, pressing it deep against his skin which still prickled from Chris’s touch. Now, it didn’t seem to matter at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Dub con sexual activity (kissing, touching, blowjob, facial), parent/student relationship references, brief suicidal thoughts, ableism, classism, general unpleasant behaviour following a sexual act including non consensual photo taking.


	4. Author's Note

Apologies to people who got excited when they saw an update for this, as this is probably not the update you wanted to see. However I felt the people who had been so lovely in reading and commenting deserved an explanation.

For months I have received abusive anonymous messages on my fanfiction work, the most recent of which, a couple of months ago, was a very clear doxxing threat with personal information including my place of work and names of people in my family. I had been stupid enough to overlook how easy it was to trace these details when it came to my internet activity and now I will never feel fully at ease again within this fandom.

The threat was reported to the police and although it was decided that at this point it was not a case for criminal investigation, the details of what happened are now on record in case the threats are followed through (which would obviously make it a criminal matter.) 

I never wanted to become controversial within this fandom. I wrote fanfiction for the show because I loved it. I still love it; I still love the characters and the messages and the storylines and the values of the show. If I ever upset or triggered anyone in the fandom with my fanfiction or with my twitter/cc chatter then I wholeheartedly apologise because it was never my intention to do anything other than write and share discourse about the characters and talk to like minded people. Sometimes I messed up and said things in ways I now regret (I would argue that every single person who regularly tweets/writes tumblr posts etc have been guilty of that), but please know that nothing I ever said or wrote was intended to minimise serious issues. I hope my fanfiction, and the depth of emotion I went into for each fic I wrote, would show how much I care about the characters and the subject matters I wrote about. If that didn't come across, I apologise once again.

Karly and I are working hard to finish The Oceans Shall Freeze as we both felt horrendous about leaving that fic unfinished and were able to support each other to complete the final chapters. However for Ghosts, as much as I had a story to tell here, I cannot continue it with the feelings I now have associated with it. The Oceans Shall Freeze will be the last fic I write under this pen name.

I may find another pen name to write under, I may not. I do still want to write fanfiction for the show despite everything because, well, like I said I love it. And I'm still inspired by it. If I do then I will not be returning to public Twitter under any circumstances.

I hope that the ficdom of Skam continues to thrive and that readers and writers can learn from what happened to me. Please be aware of who you are giving your personal information to. Take precautions to protect your last name and your location. Enjoy the show and the fandom but don't become consumed with it or assume that everyone you talk to has good intentions. Be aware that people can reverse image search so don't cross post pictures in your fandom space and on your personal social media. Be self-reflective about your own writing and musings but also be aware that if you disagree with what someone is writing or saying then you have a responsibility to yourself and to the general fandom morale to avoid that person rather than attempt to shame them.

Most of all, be kind to each other and remember why we came together in the first place; to discuss and share creative work about a truly amazing and unique show.

Peace out. <3

 **ETA:** Thank you for the wonderful comments you guys have left, they really do mean the world to me. Needless to say, it's quite an emotional time for me right now and I will probably not answer comments unless they contain specific questions or points which I feel it's important to respond to. But I am reading and appreciating every single one, so thank you again for being so kind and so lovely.


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